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Torque - n. Necklace of twisted metal; the twisting or rotary force in a piece of mechanism.
In this piece the conventional grouping of the string quartet is driven through a number of different moods in a single movement. Performance directions include ‘glassy’, ‘as if remembering’, ‘irritable’, ‘aggressively’ and other indications of an underlying tension. The
homogeneous nature of the strings is both acknowledged and challenged as the piece moves between light and dark shades while retaining a sense of unease and instability. |
Work preferences represent the extent to which an individual derives satisfaction from engaging in different tasks. For example, some people are more satisfied working outdoors, while others are happy to sit at a desk.
Research indicates that job satisfaction is directly influenced by the degree of match between individual vocational preferences and specific job requirements (i.e. job fit).
Hiring people whose work preferences match a job’s requirements can significantly:
The Revelian Work Preferences Profile assesses individual work preferences across the following eight areas, encompassing tasks that occur across a broad scope of occupational roles:
People completing the Revelian Work Preferences Profile are asked to indicate their preference for one of two tasks in a series of questions. Analysis across all items is conducted to identify their job preferences.
Each individual’s job preferences are compared to a position profile, completed online by a supervisor or the position incumbent, and an overall match classification is calculated. The higher the percentage match, the more likely the individual will ‘fit’ the requirements of the job and be satisfied at work. |
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The caracal cat, or Caracal caracal, is a mesmerising animal. While many have not even heard of them, those that have will remember them forever. Their trademark giant ears and long, lean bodies make them very distinctive large cats, and their ability to leap high up into the air, and pluck birds from the sky, gives them an almost mythical hold over the imaginations of the world’s more daring pet-owners.
Caracal kittens are unique and cute, but there are many factors to consider. Yes, there are owners who have domesticated these cats. However, it is not without a huge commitment of time, money and energy. Would you try to keep a hyena as a pet? It is a similar sort of question. Perhaps there are those of you who would—well, there are some very important things you should know. So, read on!
Its name harks from the Turkish word karakalak, which means ‘black ear’: kara = black, kalak = ear. It’s not difficult to imagine why this part of the caracal’s succeeded in being its namesake; the caracal’s black ears are its most identifiable feature. The Turkish connection is the Caspian Sea coast, an area which throughout large parts of history has spoken Turkish, or languages similar to Turkish.
The caracal is native to the deserts and savannahs of this very coast, as well as the Arabian Peninsula, Central Asia and parts of Africa. While it may purr when content, and communicate with a range of meows, growls and hisses much like a domesticated house cat, this carnivorous predator is a fierce hunter, capable of taking down animals much larger than itself—for example, springboks nearly a meter tall.
Can you have a caracal as a pet?
Here’s a rundown of the areas I’ll be covering, and the questions I’ll be answering, in this guide.
- Caracal cat habitat: Where do caracal cats originate?
- Caracal size and weight: How big can a caracal kitten grow? And when does it stop being a kitten?
- Longevity: What is the lifespan of a caracal? When does a caracal kitten become an adult caracal?
- Caracal cat behavior: Are caracals dangerous? Can they be handled?
- Caracal cat diet: What do they eat?
- Legal issues: Is it legal to own a caracal kitten in the United States?
- Caracal cat cost: How much would it cost you to buy one? Is it as simple as that?
- Caracal cat extras: What sounds does a caracal cat make? Do they hiss? How fast is a caracal cat? How high can a caracal cat jump? And the question you’re desperate to know the answer to… How far can a caracal cat hear?
If, by the time you’ve perused this article, you’re still hungry for more information, a quick online search should pull up some more sites. If you’re still in doubt, I suggest you contact an expert!
#1 Caracal cat habitat:
Where are caracal cats from?
Caracals are native to large swathes of dry, desert land. Over the years, they have found home in Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, and even parts of India. As far as caracals are concerned, the drier the better. Well, not exactly, but they have evolved to subsist on very little water.
One such country that the caracal calls home is the kingdom of Lesotho, which it shares with a handful of other big cats, including the Transvaal lion, the African leopard, and the South African cheetah. While it may not have the grandest reputation among its other feline companions/competitors, the caracal certainly takes the biscuit for cutest cat in Lesotho… and maybe the world.
As they are solitary animals, caracals are typically found alone, though may be spotted in mating pairs. Other caracal guides state that caracals are diurnal, but they are in fact mostly nocturnal, meaning they are mostly active at night. For this reason, they can be difficult to observe in the wild.
Caracals come in a variety of hues and colorations, from pale beige to bright orange-brown, sometimes even red, as befits each caracal community’s habitat. For example, those whose region of origin is covered in pale brown sand will exhibit fur of a similar—evolution at its finest. And that’s besides the ears!
Caracal Housing as Pets
In order to meet their requirements as animals, you must ensure your pet caracal has a large outdoor area in which to roam, sneak and play – several acres ideally. This area should be high-fenced, and secure.
If you rear a caracal from a very young age, it will probably be tame enough not to wreak havoc on your indoor furniture. It will still relish the opportunity to swat birds from low skies and tree branches, but there are examples of well-socialized caracals that interact positively with humans, even strangers.
However, it is ill-advised to house in captivity a caracal which has previously lived in a cage. Such animals require very forgiving captive environments, and are unlikely to adjust well. Caracals lack a homing instinct, so will not return if they get out of their enclosure. For this reason, I recommend constructing a roofed enclosure. Obviously, installing a roof over several acres of grassland is a giant operation for a private pet owner to undertake, but a scared caracal on the loose could cause a lot of damage to unsuspecting livestock, and neighbors.
#2 Caracal cat size and weight:
How big can a caracal kitten grow?
Many of those who fantasize about owning a caracal cat are fixated predominantly on the earlier stages of caracal development. Basically, everyone loves the look of a caracal kitten. And who wouldn’t? You just can’t help it. Caracal kittens are adorable, and quirky.
But eventually that kitten is going to grow into a cat—a large cat, at that. Fully grown caracals can be as heavy as 50 lbs, though most males don’t reach more than 40 lbs, and females 30 lbs. Adults can grow up to 32 inches in length, and stand at 21 inches at the shoulder. They also require 2 to 3 lbs of meat a day.
Mostly, wild caracals sustain themselves on small mammals, such as rodents, and birds, which they catch out of the sky (or out of a tree). However, their capacity for taking on much larger prey should be a warning to anyone seeking to tame one. If a cat can take on a springbok, it can take on its owner.
It is a medium-sized wild cat with a robust build, and shares heritage with lynxes and other wildcats. Caracals are excellent, finely tuned territorial predators with an incredible capacity to leap into the air. Let that be known before taking the plunge into owning this exotic animal!
When does it stop being a kitten?
Caracals, both male and female, become sexually mature at 7-10 months, though won’t successfully copulate until 14 to 15 months of age. Once ready, they breed throughout the year – another great survival mechanism. The gestation period for a caracal lasts 2-3 months, and results in a litter of 1-6 kittens.
In the wild, juvenile caracals leave their mothers at the age of 9-10 months. Some females stay back with their mothers, but most caracals fend for themselves before they are a year old. By this time, they are not far off fully grown, and know how to take care of themselves.
What is the lifespan of a caracal?
The average lifespan of captive caracals is nearly 16 years, while the maximum captive longevity reported was just over 20 years, for a wild-born female raised in a captive environment. Wild caracals tend to live to about 12 years. This is in line with various other types of wild cat, such as Canada lynxes and wildcats, slightly longer than cougars, and slightly shorter than servals.
#4 Caracal cat behavior:
While mating, caracals will be seen in pairs, but caracals are mostly solitary, and hunt for prey independent of each other. They are excellent tree climbers, a skill which allows them to sneak up on unwitting birds and snatch them from their perches or nests. They are also proficient diggers. Burrows serve as dugouts for kittens to grow up in. Caracal kittens spend most of their time in these underground shelters until they are large enough to live independently.
Caracals have been tamed and used for hunting since the time of ancient Egypt. But this is ‘tamed’ in the loosest sense: this does not mean they are evolutionarily wired to be domesticated. The vast majority lives in the wild, and hunts for its prey.
Are caracals dangerous?
Caracals can run at 50mph, outrunning such animals as antelopes and ostriches. They are also territorial and primarily nocturnal. They are skilled, tenacious climbers, and able diggers, with the ability to fend off predators twice their size. All of this means that you do not want to get on the wrong side of a caracal.
Can they be handled?
In theory, yes, they can be handled at a young age, and potentially as adults. They can be well-mannered, with traditional cat-like attitudes: i.e., they play and interact on their own terms. You cannot initiate affection at any moment. When they do play, they can be destructive and rambunctious.
Do caracals attack humans?
Caracals are notorious for attacking livestock, but rarely attack humans. Many people argue that caracals can be cared for in a manner similar to traditional domesticated house cats, with regular levels of safety and affection. But it cannot be ruled out.
#5 Caracal cat diet:
What do they eat?
Caracals, like many other felines, are strictly carnivorous. The bulk of the caracal’s diet comprises hares, rodents, small monkeys, hyraxes, antelopes and birds—doves and partridges, in particular. Larger mammals which fall under the caracal’s claw include mountain gazelles, gerenuks, mountain reedbucks and Kori bustards, as well as the aforementioned springboks.
Geography accounts for a lot of the variation: African caracals may eat more larger animals, while Asians may eat more rodents. Across the board, they are known for leaving no waste, often storing leftovers in trees and bushes.
Caracals can live with very little water, a trait they owe to their ancestors. Those living in more arid climes will extend their territorial range to include a freshwater source, such as a river or oasis.
#6 Legal issues:
Is it legal to own a caracal kitten in the United States?
There is no short answer to this, as it falls under state law, not federal law.
States with a comprehensive ban on keeping large exotic cats include California, Oregon, Washington, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, New Jersey, South Carolina and Georgia.
States with no ban include Nevada, Wisconsin, North Carolina and Alabama.
Exemptions, partial bans and licensure schemes with various requirements and levels of enforcement exist in a total of 35 states.
Here is a helpful map of the United States, with the varying levels of legality illustrated, and links to all individual states.
#7 Caracal cat cost:
How much would it cost to buy a caracal kitten?
According to Big Cat Rescue, most mid size cats, like servals and caracals, cost $1700 to $2800.
Is it as simple as that?
No. Caracals need to be declawed before they are legal to keep as pets. They are also only cute cuddly cubs for so long. Soon enough, they will be over a meter long, and spraying.
You will need to bring a veterinarian on board who is willing to take care of your wild cat. Startup costs also include a stainless steel squeeze cage, starting from $1,250, and you will have to arrange for annual vaccinations, check-ups and so on, possibly a van to transport the cage, enough land to comply with state regulations, and a large, secure room in which to house your cat.
Recurring costs include 2-3 lbs of fresh meat per day and necessary vitamins, annual shots, veterinary bills, vaccinations, worming, licenses and permits… the list goes on.
Also, bear in mind that 98% of exotic animals bought as pets die in their first 2 years in captivity.
If you think that all of this is for you, and if you are willing to all future vacations, then fair enough. Move on to the next step!
#8 Caracal cat extras:
What does a caracal cat sound like?
Caracals communicate with a range of hisses, spits, growls and meows, much as regular house cats do. They also communicate tactilely, by sparring and huddling with each other. Mates are attracted through olfactory cues, or pheromones, which trigger hormonal changes.
Why do caracals hiss?
Hissing may strike you as an exclusively aggressive behavior. But among caracals hissing is a regular mode of communication.
How good is a caracal’s hearing?
A caracal’s ears, or super-sensitive parabolic sound antennas, are controlled by 20 different muscles. Their tufts are thought to enhance their hearing by funneling sound waves into their ears.
How fast is a caracal cat?
Caracals can run up to 50mph.
How high can a caracal cat jump?
Caracals can jump 12 ft into the air, owing to their powerful hindquarters! Legend has it, they can knock as many as 10 birds out of the air in one swipe.
Do caracal kittens make good pets?
In the name of neutrality, it is important to state that there are some exotic cat owners who successfully, and happily, keep caracals as pets. However, they are relatively few and far between, and have made huge sacrifices in order to house these majestic animals. They cannot take vacations, as their pets require constant maintenance and cannot be left in the care of anyone without a license.
The cats themselves also make sacrifices, though unwillingly: they must be declawed, and typically live in an area a mere fraction of the size of a regular caracal territory. Caracals are also not endangered, so there is no benefit, to the species itself, of members living in captivity.
At the same time, they are magnificent creatures, and must make their captive owners very happy. I’m sure they make excellent pets, for those who are willing to invest the proper amount of money, time, energy and care into animal husbandry. For the rest of us, I imagine a regular house cat will do!
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International journal of environmental research and public health article relationship between burnout and body mass index in senior and middle managers from the mexican. How can i differentiate between a junior employee and a senior i am looking to see if there are definable attributes between a junior employee and senior.
Policy on consensual sexual relationships between senior and the university has taken a middle into an official counseling relationship 3 all other senior. Iii abstract deborah albright santiago a study of the relationship between middle school and high school teachers instructional and behavior management practices and demographic variables. Achieving coherence in district improvement focuses on a problem of practice faced by educational leaders across the nation: how to effectively manage the relationship between the central office and schools.
What's the difference between entry level/jr/sr developers [closed] what's the difference between junior, middle, and senior developers related 32. What is the grammatical difference between old english, middle english and early modern english can a modern english speaker understand spoken middle english. Leadership and innovation senior executives say that the top three ways they spend time making decisions about innovation involve largely middle managers.
Relations between senior officers and junior officers the twin foundations of military courtesy among officers are precedence and deference to seniors. Middle management is the intermediate management of a hierarchical organization that is a middle manager is a link between the senior management and the. Balancing teaching and management thinks that the key to a successful relationship between middle and senior management is cooperation.
Overcoming disconnect between middle & upper senior managers report to the executive officer of the what is the current relationship between management. What is a liaison between the upper management and the 3 the relationship between hr & a there might be several middle managers between an employee's. America’s seniors have historically been late adopters to the world of technology compared to their younger compatriots, but their movement into digital life. Running head: self-efficacy and work experience 1 relationship between self-efficacy and work experience in baccalaureate junior and senior.
What are the differences between the middle and middle class is the vast space between that amount and a what is the relationship between poverty and. Recommended citation hopkins, treg, the relationship between well-being and technology among senior citizens in indiana (2018) doctoral dissertations and projects. The uneasy relationship between church and state dominated the middle ages and has continued into modern times.
The west and the middle east the china–north korea relationship by eleanor albert read foreign affairs in your inbox more from foreign. The present study sought to investigate the relationship between cultural capital of senior high school english teachers and their self-efficacy in iran’s english language classrooms using a mixed methods approach. Read consumer reports' investigation of risky drivers and see what the similarities are between old than that for middle that the senior can. In a six-part series, the middle east and the west, a troubled history, npr's mike shuster examines the nearly 1,000-year history of western involvement in the middle east.Download |
How do you keep pupils motivated in the summer term? Some fun lesson ideas and activities for all the NQTs out there.
One of the hardest jobs as a newly qualified teacher is keeping the pupils motivated and on task, especially at the end of the academic year. The summer holidays are looming, they have nearly finished their exams and the summer term blues kick in.
There are a few golden nuggets we can give newly qualified teachers and final year students so you can help the fidgety kids channel their energy into productive tasks. Just remember its important pupils are engaged and learning something rather than just being occupied.
If you have any of your own suggestions you can share with us please email us and we can post them on to our website for everyone to see.
Cooperative Learning Activity Stations
At this time of year pupils tend to have a low attention span. By creating a map of stations with different interactive activities you can move groups or pairs of pupils around each station. Monitor when they start to loose concentration and quickly move them around to the next station. If you incorporate some cooperative learning in to these stations this will motivate your pupils to interact with each other. For more information on cooperative learning and some great resources click here
Pre-prepared lesson plans and resources centred around current themes
Why not use the Queen’s Jubilee, the Euros or the Olympics as a themed framework for your lessons. Not only will the pupils learn something different but its all relative to what is going on currently. Have a look at these lesson plan ideas for the Olympics click here
End of year conclusion
It is a great time of year to show your pupils what they have learnt and their achievements throughout the year. Not only is this motivating for the pupils but for yourself as a newly qualified teacher of final year student training to be a teacher! You could create a scrapbook, allowing each student to have their very own page where they can write a report of what they have done, report on special events and stick in pictures or drawings of what they have achieved. Some NQTs have done this on the computer and then printed a copy for every student.
An alternative to this could be a newsletter or magazine put together by the pupils. This will require a creative director, editor, proof reader, photographer and reporters. Don’t forget with all these ideas you can incorporate brainstorming activities and pupils will learn how to plan and put it all together. An alternative to all this could be getting the pupils to work in teams to create an interactive presentation on powerpoint which they then deliver to each other. Perhaps focusing on the other team’s achievements rather than their own.
Think about installing a book club for your class. You can create an environment that encourages reading but not necessarily the core texts on the curriculum. You can then set homework or activity sessions around their chosen book. This would also be a great time to encourage pupils to read their favourite exerts from their book aloud to the class.
Lots and lots of fun and games for positive reinforcement
Pupils love quizzes, puzzles, competitions and games. You could do a blog writing competition, a quiz centred around the history of the Olympics and tournaments using games like Sudoku or crosswords. These are great ice-breakers for anyone doing day-to-day supply or rewards for good behaviour. It also encourages team working between the pupils. Check out these education ice-breaker games click here
We rarely get good weather in this country but when the sun does show its face we need to make the most of it. A change of scenery is great for kids and things like science experiments, solving mathematical problems, writing poetry and reading can all be done outside. Just make sure you let your head of department or head teacher know what you plan to do in advance.
Again if you have any ideas you have used yourself that we can let our teachers know about that would be great. Just get in touch with us so we can promote your ideas. |
A violin plot is a statistical graphic for comparing probability distributions. It is similar to a box plot, with the addition of a rotated kernel density plot on each side.
The violin plot was proposed in 1997 by Jerry L. Hintze and Ray D. Nelson as a way to display even more information than box plots, which were created by John Tukey in 1977. The name comes from the plot's alleged resemblance to a violin.
Violin plots are similar to box plots, except that they also show the probability density of the data at different values, usually smoothed by a kernel density estimator. A violin plot will include all the data that is in a box plot: a marker for the median of the data; a box or marker indicating the interquartile range; and possibly all sample points, if the number of samples is not too high.
While a box plot shows a summary statistics such as mean/median and interquartile ranges, the violin plot shows the full distribution of the data. The violin plot can be used in multimodal data (more than one peak). In this case a violin plot shows the presence of different peaks, their position and relative amplitude.
Like box plots, violin plots are used to represent comparison of a variable distribution (or sample distribution) across different "categories" (for example, temperature distribution compared between day and night, or distribution of car prices compared across different car makers).
A violin plot can have multiple layers. For instance, the outer shape represents all possible results. The next layer inside might represent the values that occur 95% of the time. The next layer (if it exists) inside might represent the values that occur 50% of the time.
Violin plots are less popular than box plot. Violin plots may be harder to understand for readers not familiar with them. In this case, a more accessible alternative is to plot a series of stacked histograms or kernel density plots.
The original meaning of "violin plot" was a combination of a box plot and a two-sided kernel density plot. However, currently "violin plots" are sometimes understood just as two-sided kernel density plots, without a box plot or any other elements. |
8.5 x 5.5 in
A5 (148mm x 210mm)
Spell out your message loud and clear with informative dietary guidance consulting flyers. You're a nutrition guru, so let your background and expertise shine with custom text, and then add photos to ground your message and drive home your points. Begin designing your print-ready flyers now! |
Bringing to life aspects of Victorian times through music, songs and dances, with a combination of performance in costume and pupil participation. This can be adapted for both primary and secondary age pupils.
Songs and dances can highlight topics such as:
- Life and work in the countryside
- The effects of the corn laws
- Music hall entertainment
- Effects of the industrial revolution
- Life on the canals
- New pastimes eg cycling |
Bornaviruses cause neurologic diseases in several species of birds, especially parrots, waterfowl and finches. The characteristic lesions observed in these birds include encephalitis and gross dilatation of the anterior stomach — the proventriculus. The disease is thus known as proventricular dilatation disease (PDD). PDD is characterized by extreme proventricular dilatation, blockage of the passage of digesta and consequent death by starvation. There are few clinical resemblances between this and the bornaviral encephalitides observed in mammals. Nevertheless, there are common virus-induced pathogenic pathways shared across this disease spectrum that are explored in this review. Additionally, a review of the literature relating to gastroparesis in humans and the control of gastric mobility in mammals and birds points to several plausible mechanisms by which bornaviral infection may result in extreme proventricular dilatation. |
Council also called on the Administration to provide sufficient advance notice of plans to resume testing, in order "to allow adequate time for informed and thorough analysis and public discussion".
In passing the statement, Council referred to a 2002 study by a committee of the National Academy of Sciences, which concluded that "the United States has the technical capabilities to maintain confidence in the safety and reliability of its existing nuclear-weapon stockpile" without nuclear testing, "provided that adequate resources are made available to the Department of Energy's nuclear-weapon complex and are properly focused on this task."
The full text of the Council statement follows:
The American Physical Society reaffirms its April 1997 statement that "fully informed technical studies have concluded continued testing is not required to retain confidence in the safety and reliability of the remaining nuclear weapons in the United States' stockpile."
Resumption of nuclear testing may have serious negative international consequences, particularly on the nonproliferation regime.
In addition the Society strongly urges the Congress and the Administration to provide sufficient notification and justification for any proposed nuclear test to allow adequate time for informed and thorough analysis and public discussion.
©1995 - 2016, AMERICAN PHYSICAL SOCIETY
APS encourages the redistribution of the materials included in this newspaper provided that attribution to the source is noted and the materials are not truncated or changed.
Associate Editor: Jennifer Ouellette |
Unusual ‘Cold Air Funnel’ Spotted Between Wright and Newcastle [VIDEO]
Here's something you don't see every day. Photographer Trish Gregory captured these images of a cold-air funnel Sunday along Highway 450 between Newcastle and Wright, about five miles east of School Creek Road.
Day Weather Meteorologist Don Day says cold-air funnels, which occur in the colder seasons of spring and fall, happen more often than we think but because they don't last long they're harder to spot.
"Anytime you get a shower or a thunderstorm there's always some type of circulation going on, counter clock-wise," Day explained, "and you'll have in these moist spring environments a weak shower or a thunderstorm, to where you actually have enough moisture between the ground and the base of the cloud to show these spinning motions."
Day said they look a lot like tornadoes but occur during the colder seasons. "You get a column of spinning moist air that actually drops from the base of the cloud. What's different about a cold air funnel as compared to a tornado is that there's much more structure above the base of the cloud, a lot more rotation, a lot more strength that can spin up a tornado.
"A cold air funnel could cause some gusty winds, move things around a little bit, but they tend to be very short-lived but they can take on the shape of a funnel cloud or tornado." |
There is no denying that play is vital for the developmental needs of a child. It is during this time that a child gets to learn more about the world and get their creative juices flowing. These experiences promote inquisitive minds, critical thinking skills and innovation, which is very much essential later on.
There are multiple considerations when creating an early childhood. In this article, we will discuss on how we can create the perfect home play area for your kids.
Benefits of a Home Play Area
Free play promotes creativity and independence in children. During play, children can experiment with different ways of solving an issue and try out new experiences. Children can use their imaginations to use toys or playground equipment in any way they want to. This teaches children versatility, which would come in useful in the future. Free play also has the benefit of helping kids focus in school.
Time spent on physical activities can help improve the overall health of your child. As children begin to develop physically, it is essential that they learn more about their physical abilities. Through free play, kids are able to learn to be more aware of their surroundings and develop better coordination.
Through their interaction with others, kids can get the opportunity to develop their cognitive and social skills. During games, children would have to work together to achieve certain outcomes/goals. This helps them develop essential communication skills.
Creating the Perfect Home Play Area
Here are some factors to think about in order to create the perfect home play area for your children!
- Consider capacity: Include sufficient play equipment such that the play equipment is not overcrowded, especially when your kids bring friends over.
- Layout of your playground: Ensure that there is sufficient space between the play equipment. This is to ensure that a child playing on one piece doesn’t interfere with another child playing on another. This is especially important for swings and seesaws which require a larger area.
- Age-appropriate equipment: Ensure that the equipment is suitable for the intended age group. Interest-wise, pick out sensory toys for younger kids and equipment for active play for older kids. It is also important to ensure that the size of equipment is appropriate for their use. One example of this is to ensure that the steps and ledges are small enough for your child to climb.
There are safety considerations to keep your home play area safe and comfortable for play.
- the right location: Avoid placing your play area near hazards. Examples of this include near balconies or fragile items
- the right terrain: Play area should be built on fairly flat ground
- Appropriate surfaces: Avoid placing play equipment on hard surfaces such as concrete and blacktop. Consider placing fitness mats underneath the play equipment for extra protection.
- Eliminate any hazards: Watch out for any hazards that might cause harm and rectify them. Some examples of this include debris around the playground that might pose a tripping hazard. |
Definition of Rayahs
1. Noun. (plural of rayah) ¹
¹ Source: wiktionary.com
Definition of Rayahs
1. rayah [n] - See also: rayah
Click the following link to bring up a new window with an automated collection of images related to the term: Rayahs Images
Lexicographical Neighbors of Rayahs
ray of light
rayahs (current term)
Literary usage of Rayahs
Below you will find example usage of this term as found in modern and/or classical literature:
1. The Balkans: A Laboratory of History by William Milligan Sloane (1914)
"There was little interest as to the nationalities of The Creel the rayahs while Turkish rule was strong. They were nearly all Christians of the Byzantine ..."
2. The Balkans: A Laboratory of History by William Milligan Sloane (1914)
"There was little interest as to the nationalities of The Greek the rayahs while Turkish rule was strong. They were nearly all Christians of the Byzantine ..."
3. A Short History of the Near East: From the Founding of Constantinople (330 A by William Stearns Davis (1922)
"THE ARMY; THE JANISSARIES; THE CHRISTIAN rayahs THE ORGANIZATION OF THE OTTOMAN ARMIES Afar from the divan of the viziers and secretaries, ..."
4. The Leisure Hour edited by William Haig Miller, James Macaulay, William Stevens (1876)
"It is more than doubtful whether the groat mas; of the Bulgarian rayahs left to themselves cherish any ..."
5. The Balkan Question: The Present Condition of the Balkans and of European by Luigi Villari (1905)
"... that in which the Christian Powers begin to take an active interest in the conditions and sufferings of the rayahs or Christian subjects of the Porte. ..."
6. Travels in Turkey, Egypt, Nubia, and Palestine, in 1824, 1825, 1826, and 1827 by Richard Robert Madden (1829)
"try of the Christian rayahs. That resource avails no longer, at least to any thing like the extent to which it once did. ..."
7. Through Bosnia and the Herzegóvina on Foot During the Insurrection, August by Arthur Evans (1876)
"... the Men of Nevesinje—Mas- Bacre of Sick rayahs by Native Mahometans hegins the War—Plan of Dervish Pasha's Campaign—Interview with the Governor-General, ..."
8. Travels in the Three Great Empires of Austria, Russia, and Turkey by Charles Boileau Elliott (1838)
"Despotic act. — Shereef pasha. — Syrian government. — Condition of Moslims and rayahs. — Estimate of Mohammed All's character. ..." |
The Royal TS document is basically a simple XML file. In case the file is corrupted, you may receive error messages like this:
- Error opening document [DOCUMENT]. Unexpected end of file has occurred...
- Exception: The header is corrupt
It's always good to have backups of your files. In case you missed to backup your Royal TS document, Royal TS will keep backups automatically (by default) for you.
Royal TS keeps backup copies of your files in %temp% (by default the 10 last versions). Backup is enabled by default and can be turned off or modified in the View -> Options -> General dialog:
Restore from Backup
If a file gets corrupted, you can restore it from the backup:
- Navigate to %temp% (best would be you order the list by Date Modified, descending.
- Look for files with the extension *.rtsbu
- The file name is the GUID of the document.
- To open a backup file, simply rename the [GUID].rtsbu file to [somename].rtsx
- Now you can open the file |
From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository
Primary source, public domain documents and files relating to cultic phenomenon and the study of religious cults and other kinds of destructive cults.
- Cults: A Conflict Between Religious Liberty and Involuntary Servitude? (1982), Federal Bureau of Investigation
- The Cultic Phenomena: New and Emerging Religious Movements in America (1979), Congressional Research Service
- The Effects of Religious Cults on the Health and Welfare of Their Converts (1977), Congressional Record |
This book offers a unique pathway to methods of parallel optimization by introducing parallel computing ideas and techniques into both optimization theory, and into some numerical algorithms for large-scale optimization problems. The presentation is based on the recent understanding that rigorous mathematical analysis of algorithms, parallel computing techniques, and "hands-on" experimental work on real-world problems must go hand in hand in order to achieve the greatest advantage from novel parallel computing architectures. The three parts of the book thus bring together relevant theory, careful study of algorithms, and modelling of significant real world problems. The problem domains include: image reconstruction, radiation therapy treatment planning, transportation problems, portfolilo management, and matrix estimation. This text can be used both as a reference for researchers and as a text for advanced graduate courses.
Combinatorial (or discrete) optimization is one of the most active fields in the interface of operations research, computer science, and applied math- ematics. Combinatorial optimization problems arise in various applications, including communications network design, VLSI design, machine vision, air- line crew scheduling, corporate planning, computer-aided design and man- ufacturing, database query design, cellular telephone frequency assignment, constraint directed reasoning, and computational biology. Furthermore, combinatorial optimization problems occur in many diverse areas such as linear and integer programming, graph theory, artificial intelligence, and number theory. All these problems, when formulated mathematically as the minimization or maximization of a certain function defined on some domain, have a commonality of discreteness. Historically, combinatorial optimization starts with linear programming. Linear programming has an entire range of important applications including production planning and distribution, personnel assignment, finance, alloca- tion of economic resources, circuit simulation, and control systems. Leonid Kantorovich and Tjalling Koopmans received the Nobel Prize (1975) for their work on the optimal allocation of resources. Two important discover- ies, the ellipsoid method (1979) and interior point approaches (1984) both provide polynomial time algorithms for linear programming. These algo- rithms have had a profound effect in combinatorial optimization. Many polynomial-time solvable combinatorial optimization problems are special cases of linear programming (e.g. matching and maximum flow). In addi- tion, linear programming relaxations are often the basis for many approxi- mation algorithms for solving NP-hard problems (e.g. dual heuristics).
This book shows how the Bayesian Approach (BA) improves well known heuristics by randomizing and optimizing their parameters. That is the Bayesian Heuristic Approach (BHA). The ten in-depth examples are designed to teach Operations Research using Internet. Each example is a simple representation of some impor tant family of real-life problems. The accompanying software can be run by remote Internet users. The supporting web-sites include software for Java, C++, and other lan guages. A theoretical setting is described in which one can discuss a Bayesian adaptive choice of heuristics for discrete and global optimization prob lems. The techniques are evaluated in the spirit of the average rather than the worst case analysis. In this context, "heuristics" are understood to be an expert opinion defining how to solve a family of problems of dis crete or global optimization. The term "Bayesian Heuristic Approach" means that one defines a set of heuristics and fixes some prior distribu tion on the results obtained. By applying BHA one is looking for the heuristic that reduces the average deviation from the global optimum. The theoretical discussions serve as an introduction to examples that are the main part of the book. All the examples are interconnected. Dif ferent examples illustrate different points of the general subject. How ever, one can consider each example separately, too.
Ethnographic Research: A Guide to General Conduct is the first in the ASA Research Methods series. This volume is about ethnographic research, the production of data, and the practical aspects of research practice. It is general and introductory in scope. Designed as a handbook, it is suitable for rapid reference. It provides basic outlines on general practical matters of concern to all those engaged in ethnographic research, introduces the series as a whole, and serves as a guide to existing literature on issues not specifically covered by the more specialized volumes which follow.
This book introduces a novel approach to discrete optimization, providing both theoretical insights and algorithmic developments that lead to improvements over state-of-the-art technology. The authors present chapters on the use of decision diagrams for combinatorial optimization and constraint programming, with attention to general-purpose solution methods as well as problem-specific techniques. The book will be useful for researchers and practitioners in discrete optimization and constraint programming. "Decision Diagrams for Optimization is one of the most exciting developments emerging from constraint programming in recent years. This book is a compelling summary of existing results in this space and a must-read for optimizers around the world." [Pascal Van Hentenryck]
Web Basic Articles
Web Basic Books |
Background: High-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) levels in premenopausal and postmenopausal women are differentially affected by exogenous sex hormones depending on their apolipoprotein E (apo E) genotype. Because endogenous sex hormones markedly increase during pregnancy, we examined whether HDL-C declines after a first birth varied by apo E polymorphisms. Methods: In 1147 nulliparas (416 black, 731 white), fasting blood samples (nonpregnant) were drawn at baseline and at follow-up years 5, 7, and 10. Time-dependent pregnancy groups included 0 pregnancies (P0), 1+ short pregnancy (P1+), 1 birth (B1), 2 or more births (B2+). ApoE groups by alleles identified with a phenotype method included E4 (4/3 and 4/4), E3 (3/3), and E2 (2/2 and 3/2). Differences in adjusted mean HDL-C changes among pregnancy groups and ApoE groups were examined using repeated measures multiple linear regression. Results: HDL-C declines associated with parity (one or more births) depended on ApoE group (ApoE*Pregnancy Interaction; p < 0.002). For B1 and B2+ vs. P0, HDL-C declines were -2.4 to -2.7 mg/dl in E4 and -3.4 to -4.1 mg/dl in E3. In E2, HDL-C declines were -6.6 mg/dl for one birth, and -11.5 mg/dl for two or more births, each relative to the 0 pregnancies (P0) group (linear trend, p < 0.001). Conclusions: The degree to which childbearing adversely affects long-term HDL-C declines varies by apo E phenotype, based on a method that accurately classifies genotype. Our findings show that 2/2 and 3/2 genotypes are associated with larger parity-related HDL-C declines than 3/3, 4/3, and 4/4 genotypes.
ASJC Scopus subject areas |
Have you ever looked into your guinea pig’s cage and noticed them flip over their house sometimes?
They might have a little hut, igloo, or hideout that they constantly tip over when they feel like it.
Most of the time a guinea pig can even look proud that they’ve done it, so why do guinea pigs flip over their house?
The main reasons why guinea pigs flip their house over are:
- Because they like to rearrange the things in their cage.
- They’ll flip things over when they’re mad.
- When they think their cage or house is too small.
- If they’re trying to get a better angle so that they can chew on it.
So it’s true that they can do it for a lot of different reasons, but luckily there are some easy ways to get them to stop if you don’t want them to do it anymore.
Table of Contents
Why Does My Guinea Pig Flip Over Their House?
If you have a guinea pig that flips over their house then sometimes it can be a confusing behavior to see happen.
This is mainly because like most of their behaviors it can have multiple meanings when they do it.
The first reason why they’ll knock over their little house is that some guinea pigs just like rearranging the items that are in their cage.
So this can happen when they don’t like the spot that a certain item is in so they’ll push it around and turn it over to how they want it.
It’s fun and almost like a game for them and it’s kind of like interior decorating for guinea pigs.
The second reason why they’ll do it is when something around them it’s starting to make them a little upset.
For example, if another guinea pig in the cage is harassing them, even playfully, then they may start to act out and begin to flip things over.
It can sometimes be hard to tell when your guinea pig is mad, but this can be one of the smaller signs that they are.
Another reason why a guinea pig will flip their house over is if they think that their cage or house is too small for them.
If they don’t have enough room to run around and release all of their pent-up energy then you may see this happen.
It’s the same with flipping over their little igloo or hut as well, because when they do this, for them it can seem like they’re creating some extra space for themselves.
Guinea pigs will also flip over their house so that they can try to get a better angle to chew on it.
They will try to chew on any and everything that they can get their little hands on, so it’s no surprise that they will try to chew on their house after they’ve tipped it over.
Is It Normal For A Guinea Pig To Flip Over Their House?
It is natural to want to know if their house flipping behavior is normal if you have ever seen your guinea pig do it.
It’s one of those odd things that you’ll see them do every now and then, but is it a normal thing for them to do?
Generally, it’s normal for a guinea pig to try to knock over their house when they feel like it.
Most of the time when it comes to guinea pigs it would actually be unusual if they didn’t do it every so often.
A lot of guinea pigs just like to rearrange their stuff to how they like it, and usually, that’s a good thing.
The reason why it can be a good thing is that it can mean that they still care enough and have enough energy to do these types of activities.
Guinea pigs will try to move around a lot of things in their cage, so you’ll see them knock over their food bowl, their toys, and their house, and it’s all very normal for them to do.
Will Guinea Pigs Always Try To Flip Over Their House?
Like their houses, guinea pigs can flip over a lot of the items in their cage so much that sometimes it can even seem like they prefer it this way.
Sometimes you may even see them turn it over as soon as you put their house back in the right position too. So is this something that they will always try to do throughout their lives?
Most of the time some guinea pigs will do it as they continue to get older and that’s completely normal behavior.
However, some guinea pigs can stop flipping over their house sometimes as well. So it usually depends on the reason why they’re doing it in the first place.
If they’re doing it because they don’t have enough space in their cage or if their house is too small for them, then they may stop once they get a bigger cage and house.
But if flipping over their house is something that they like to do and it’s fun for them, then they most likely won’t stop unless you intervene in some way.
Should You Stop A Guinea Pig From Flipping Over Their House?
Sometimes when a guinea pig flips over their house they’ll put it back to how it was themselves, but most of the time you’ll have to fix it for them.
Constantly doing this can start to become slightly annoying over time, so is this something that you should stop them from doing?
Most of the time trying to stop your guinea pig from knocking over their little igloo or hut won’t always work out how you want it to.
Guinea pigs are mainly going to do what they want and sometimes that means flipping over their house.
So when they rearrange the items in their cage it’s just what they want to do and it’s usually fine to let them continue doing it.
However, there are some simple things that you can try to help stop them from doing it all the time.
For example, if they’re doing it because they don’t like the size of their cage or house, then getting them a larger sized cage or house may stop them from doing it.
A larger-sized house can also help stop them from knocking it over because they won’t be able to get the angle that would allow them to flip it over as well.
If that’s not the reason why they’re doing it and you want them to stop, then getting them a house that is a little bit heavier may help.
A heavy house can make it so that they won’t be strong enough to physically pick it up and turn it over.
They’ll still be able to push it around to where they want it which can make them happy, and you won’t have to constantly come back to their cage and flip their house back over. |
Toxic Pollutants: Materials that cause death, disease, or birth defects in organisms that ingest
or absorb them. The quantities and exposures necessary to cause these effects can vary
CWA: (13) The term ``toxic pollutant'' means those pollutants, or combinations of pollutants, including
disease-causing agents, which after discharge and upon exposure, ingestion, inhalation or assimilation
into any organism, either directly from the environment or indirectly by ingestion through food chains,
will, on the basis of information available to the Administrator, cause death, disease, behavioral
abnormalities, cancer, genetic mutations, physiological malfunctions (including malfunctions in
reproduction) or physical deformations, in such organisms or their offspring
[Humans are one category of Organisms -- see RCRA Hazardous Waste]
Organism: Any form of animal or plant life.
1 : a complex structure of interdependent and subordinate elements whose relations and properties
are largely determined by their function in the whole
2 : an individual constituted to carry on the activities of life by means of organs separate in function but
mutually dependent : a living being
RCRA: (5) The term ``hazardous waste'' means a solid waste, or combination of solid wastes,
which because of its quantity, concentration, or physical, chemical, or infectious
characteristics may-- (A) cause, or significantly contribute to an increase in mortality or an
increase in serious irreversible, or incapacitating reversible, illness; or
(B) pose a substantial present or potential hazard to human health or the environment when
improperly treated, stored, transported, or disposed of, or otherwise managed.
CWA: 3) it is the national policy that the discharge of toxic pollutants in toxic amounts be
prohibited EPA's Section 304(a) criteria for Priority Toxic Pollutants: [1.) Antimony; 2. ) Arsenic;
3.) Beryllium; 4.) Cadmium; 5.) Chromium (III) - Chromium (VI); 6. ) Copper; 7.) Lead; 8.)
Mercury;9.) Nickel; 10.) Selenium; 11.) Silver; 12.) Thallium; 13.) Zinc; 14. )Cyanide; 15. )
Asbestos; 16.) 2,3,7,8-TCDD (Dioxin)] Short list of sludge contamination.
Toxic Chemical: Any chemical listed in EPA rules as "Toxic Chemicals Subject to Section 313 of the
Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act of 1986."
Toxic Substance: A chemical or mixture that may present an unreasonable risk of injury to health or the
Toxic Waste: A waste that can produce injury if inhaled, swallowed, or absorbed through the skin.
Toxicant: A harmful substance or agent that may injure an exposed organism.
Toxicity: The degree to which a substance or mixture of substances can harm humans or animals.
Acute toxicity involves harmful effects in an organism through a single or short-term exposure. Chronic
toxicity is the ability of a substance or mixture of substances to cause harmful effects over an extended
period, usually upon repeated or continuous exposure sometimes lasting for the entire life of the
exposed organism. Subchronic toxicity is the ability of the substance to cause effects for more than one
year but less than the lifetime of the exposed organism.
Pollutant: Generally, any substance introduced into the environment that adversely affects the
usefulness of a resource or the health of humans, animals, or ecosystems..
CWA: (6) The term ``pollutant'' means dredged spoil, solid waste, incinerator residue, sewage, garbage,
sewage sludge, munitions, chemical wastes, biological materials, radioactive materials, heat, wrecked or
discarded equipment, rock, sand, cellar dirt and industrial, municipal, and agricultural waste discharged
503.9(t) Pollutant is an organic substance, an inorganic substance, a combination of organic and
inorganic substances, or a pathogenic organism that, after discharge and upon exposure, ingestion,
inhalation, or assimilation into an organism either directly from the environment or indirectly by ingestion
through the food chain, could, on the basis of information available to the Administrator of EPA, cause
death, disease, behavioral abnormalities, cancer, genetic mutations, physiological malfunctions
(including malfunction in reproduction), or physical deformations in either organisms or offspring of the
[NOTE: This definition specifically relates as well to the nine pollutants listed in 503.13
Coliform testing with list of bacteria |
death metal underground
The Ultimate Death Metal Resource
Death Metal Search Engine
Chronical Diarrhoea - The Last Judgement
Review: One of the problems of hardcore music was a lack of documentation or any central authority because the movement was underground and thus, past a few central bands, there were many worthy acts who were never recognized. Thrash -- the genre formed of the hybrid between speed metal and hardcore punk, starting around 1982 -- similarly suffered, and while most people can recognize COC or MDC as important to the genre, very few people identify bands like Chronical Diarrhoea.
In sound, this band is similar to later DRI in that it uses blocky metal riffs with punk undertones in simple hardcore song structures adapted to the specifics of what each song is expressing; influences from the Cro-Mags and Murphy's Law are also evident. While the riffing is not as advanced or distinctive as that of DRI, songs here have a gentleness and beauty that is not achieved elsewhere in the genre; for starters, this vocalist makes punk-style singing wrap itself around graceful but simple melodies. Chronical Diarrhoea present above all else the exuberant energy of youth that both cannot wait to grow up and cannot get enough of life as is, expanding toward both positive and negative opinions with a joy of living that betrays a basic belief that life is good, and any anger herein is directed toward its objects because they are believed to be capable of change and therefore, should they aspire to free will, should be urged toward it.
Plenty of goofy interludes and jokes and vocal kinks intrude, but over time listening to a CD, these are what is forgotten and not what is retained. Pace of songs varies well and there are plenty of quintessential standoffish punk riffs, as well as hilarious vocal characterizations of society (in the sense of Bad Brains or Suicidal Tendencies); if it has any weakness, it is that the punk style of riffing drones repetitive over time, inevitably. However, at once this album is both a comforting affirmation of order and an encouragement to do better, and in that it unites the best of hardcore and metal even though both genres are effectively deceased at the time of this writing. |
I have some questions on this paper, as Rigobon and Sack’s writings were rather abstract as for the estimation of the beta coefficient.
On page 11, is the beta coefficient being directly estimated by plugging in constant changes in variances and covariances across regimes? or variances/covariances within each regime are also changing in the equation?
I have tried to put the estimates from the table II on the paper, but by assuming constant changes in variances and covariances across regimes, I am not getting the beta estimate found by Rigobon and Sack. My beta coefficient is becoming 0.16 whereas the coefficient on the paper was estimated to be 0.21. I greatly appreciate any help. Thank you. |
- 7Best (Celebrity Lookalikes. 6/7)
- Do the Aussies Know Something We Don’t?
- Here’s the Problem.
- Islam, the Religion of Peace?
- How To Be a Muslim Leader
- The Pink Cardie Brigade in Britain & How to Fight Back!
- Cartoon of the Day
- Pic of the Day (Promise)
- The Lies Just Keep On Comin’
- 5.7 Hits CA this Afternoon/8 Aftershocks
- Big Earthquake in CA
- A Fighting Letter from FOX News
- Ed Hillary Was A Brit!
- Pic of the Day
- $100k Comic Found in Wall
- 7Best (Celebrity Lookalikes. 5/7)
- Quote of the Day (Cameron)
- The Real Face of the South London Tragedy
- The Essence of Obama’s Way
- Cartoon of the Day (IRS vs NZ)
Buy my book: The Bloodred Tree |
EVENT: African Forum on Youth Skills & Enterprise in the Digital Age
DATE: 15th – 16th November 2017
LOCATION: Rabat, Kingdom of Morocco
THEME: "Harnessing Demographic Dividend through Investments in the Youth"
This forum is an activity of the CESA-ICT in #Education Cluster
Co-organized by: AUC-HRST, GESCI, ADEA, ISESCO, UNICEF, JP-IK
Sponsors: IFIC-AUF, ITWORX
- Developing a shared and commanding understanding of how digital technologies can be leveraged for skilling the youth and empowering them to create entreprise in the digital era and lead the socio-economic transformation of their communities.
- Sharing knowledge, experiences, good practices and lessons learnt to better inform policies and programmes aiming at skilling the youth and entreprise creation in the digital age.
- Raising awareness on the necessity to build strong skill sets and volunteer political commitment to explore innovative approaches for leveraging digital technologies for youth skilling and entreprise creation.
- Promoting youth digital skills and entreprise high level policy dialogue platform and network that includes the public sector (ministries, agencies and institutions in charge of vocational education and youth, Regional Economic Communities - RECs); development cooperation agencies and international organizations; private sector; civil society and youth organizations. Such a policy platform and network are necessary for the development of the ecosystem that will foster partnerships to advance policy and strategy development and implementation.
- Sharing Youth’s digital skills development and entreprise creation strategies to help address youth unemployment and bridging the skills gap within Africa by identifying game-changing experiences and lessons learnt.
- Creating a platform for the promotion of the competitiveness and attractiveness of TVET sectors across Africa by identifying innovative and creative skills through an “African creative skills competition”.
Read more: http://bit.ly/2voW9nF |
Page 2: Conclusions from the analysis of the external environment
A sustainable building is one that limits energy use and scarce resources. This is vital because 26% of the UK's energy use is linked to heating buildings.
- Governments will use building regulations and planning permission controls to meet the Kyoto protocol.
- Outer town developments will be restricted in favour of inner city developments including brownfield sites.
- There will be a shortage of housing as demand increases because of more households and increased life expectancy.
- Land will be increasingly scarce and therefore expensive especially in the South-East so it will have to accommodate more people per acre, through dense development.
- As car ownership increases, there will be a 50% increase in car journeys. |
What Is Iron Deficiency Anemia?
Iron deficiency anemia is when your body doesn’t have enough red blood cells.
Red blood cells carry oxygen from your lungs to the rest of your body. Every organ and tissue in your body needs oxygen to work. Without enough oxygen in your blood, and you may feel tired, weak, and short of breath.
Your doctor will find out why your iron is low. Usually, you can treat iron deficiency anemia with supplements. Once your iron levels go up, you should start to feel better.
Symptoms of Iron Deficiency Anemia
Mild iron deficiency anemia often isn't noticeable. When it gets more severe, you may have these symptoms:
- Fatigue or weakness
- Pale or yellow skin
- Shortness of breath
- Dizziness or lightheadedness
- Fast or irregular heartbeat
- Chest pain
- Cold feet and hands
- Brittle, cracked nails, spoon-shaped nails
- Hair loss
- Cracks near the side of your mouth
- Pica (cravings for things that aren't food, like dirt, starch, clay, or ice)
- Sore and swollen tongue
- Restless legs syndrome (an urge to move your legs while you’re in bed)
Because these can also be symptoms of other conditions, see your doctor to get a diagnosis.
Causes of Iron Deficiency Anemia
Your diet is low in iron. How much iron you need depends on your age and gender. Men need at least 8 milligrams daily. Women ages 50 and younger need more -- 18 milligrams.
Your body can't absorb iron. Iron from the foods you eat is absorbed in your small intestine. Conditions like celiac disease, ulcerative colitis, or Crohn's disease can make it harder for your intestines to absorb iron. Surgery such as gastric bypass that removes part of your intestines, and medicines used to lower stomach acid can also affect your body's ability to absorb iron.
Blood loss. Some conditions can make you bleed inside your body, including:
Heavy periods. Women with heavy periods can become low in iron.
Injuries. Any injury that causes you to lose blood can cause iron deficiency anemia.
Frequent blood donations. You should wait at least 8 weeks between blood donations.
Pregnancy. When you’re expecting, you need extra iron to nourish your growing baby. If you don't get enough iron from your diet or supplements, you can become deficient.
End-stage kidney failure. If you are getting dialysis for end-stage kidney failure, you can lose blood. Some people with end-stage kidney failure also take medications that can cause iron-deficiency anemia.
Medications. Aspirin and other nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) can cause internal gastrointestinal bleeding. Proton pump inhibitors, used to control acid reflux, can prevent your body from absorbing enough iron.
Chronic health conditions that cause inflammation. This can include congestive heart failure as well as obesity.
Risk Factors of Iron Deficiency Anemia
Different factors can raise your risk of getting iron deficiency anemia. Some can be changed and some cannot. Risk factors include:
Age. Children aged 6 months to 2 years, teens, and adults over the age of 65 are most at risk.
Lifestyle. This can include exercising a lot (including endurance sports) and not eating enough foods rich in iron.
Lead. Lead from water or from environmental sources can get in the way of making red blood cells.
Family history and genetics. Two inherited diseases, hemophilia and von Willebrand disease, can cause you to bleed more and lose iron.
Gender. Girls and women who have heavy periods or are pregnant or breastfeeding need more iron.
Diagnosis of Iron Deficiency Anemia
Your doctor will do one or more of these blood tests to find out if you have iron deficiency anemia.
- Complete blood count (CBC). This test checks to see how many red blood cells you have.
- Peripheral blood smear. This test looks at the size and shape of your red blood cells. In iron deficiency anemia, red blood cells are smaller than usual.
- Hematocrit. This test shows how much of your blood is made up of red cells.
- Hemoglobin. This test shows the amount of this protein in your blood. If you have anemia, your hemoglobin will be low.
- Serum iron. This test shows how much iron is in your blood.
- Ferritin. This test shows how much iron is stored in your body by measuring this protein.
- Transferrin and total iron-binding capacity (TIBC). These tests show how much of a protein called transferrin is free to carry iron through your body.
- Reticulocyte count. This test shows how many reticulocytes (immature red blood cells) you have in your blood. If you have iron deficiency anemia, your reticulocyte count is usually low because you’re not making many new red blood cells.
If blood tests show you have iron deficiency anemia, you might need other tests like these to see what's causing it.
- Endoscopy. Your doctor uses a tube with a camera on one end to look inside your esophagus or colon. Endoscopy can find bleeding in your GI tract from ulcers, polyps, or other growths.
- Pelvic ultrasound or uterinebiopsy. If you bleed a lot during your monthly periods, this test can find the cause.
- Fecal occult blood test. This test looks for tiny amounts of blood in your poop to check for cancer and other causes of bleeding in your intestines.
Treatment of Iron Deficiency Anemia
You can treat iron deficiency anemia by taking iron supplements. Most people take 150 to 200 milligrams each day, but your doctor will recommend a dose based on your iron levels. Taking vitamin C helps your body absorb the iron.
You might need to take iron supplements for a few months or more to get your levels to normal. If your intestines don't absorb iron well, you can take iron straight into your bloodstream through an intravenous tube (IV).
Your symptoms should start to go away after about a week. Your doctor will check your blood to see if your anemia has improved.
You can also get more iron in your diet by eating more of these foods:
- Beef, pork, liver, chicken, turkey, duck, and shellfish
- Leafy greens such as broccoli, kale, turnip greens, and collard greens
- Peas, lima beans, black-eyed peas, and pinto beans
- Iron-enriched cereals and other grains
- Dried fruits, such as prunes and raisins
Eating foods high in iron may also prevent anemia.
If supplements don't help with your symptoms or your anemia is severe, you might need a transfusion of red blood cells. Or, if you have an ulcer, tumor, or other growth, it may need to be treated with medicines or surgery.
Complications of Iron Deficiency Anemia
If you don’t know you have iron deficiency anemia or if you know you have it but aren’t getting the right treatment, you could end up with complications such as:
- A higher risk of infection. This is because your immune system may not be working properly.
- Problems with pregnancy. This can include preterm delivery and low-birth-weight babies.
- Heart problems. Without enough red blood cells, your heart has to pump harder to get enough nutrients to the rest of your body. This causes strain, which can lead to heart failure, irregular heartbeat, an enlarged heart, or a heart murmur.
- Developmental delays in children. This can include cognitive problems and motor problems. |
Nuclear fusion: it’s the energy source that has powered our sun for billions of years. Now, it’s the bright star scientists are following to save us all from fossil fuel dependency.
Natural gas is the National Grid’s main resource, used to power 41 per cent of the UK’s electricity. Globally, 80 per cent of the world’s energy is derived from fossil fuels.
With the Government’s net-zero aims for 2050 and beyond, energy suppliers have been set a target to produce net-zero energy by 2035.
Bioenergy, offshore wind and nuclear energy will almost certainly have to do most of the heavy lifting to meet that target. For the long-term vision, though – and it could take decades – scientists are working to crack the code that could give us the “holy grail”: a limitless amount of clean energy.
What is nuclear fusion?
Very simply, nuclear fusion is the act of combining two light atoms against one another, creating a new, heavier one. This process lets off an abundant amount of energy.
Nuclear fusion is not to be confused with nuclear fission, which splits atoms rather than fusing them. Fission gave birth to the atomic bomb and existing nuclear power. It emits harmful radiation and produces radioactive waste. The by-product of a nuclear fusion reaction is helium, and there’s not much to worry about a gas which is used to fill party balloons.
The reason nuclear fusion is so hot and desirable right now compared to existing renewable energy sources is because the amount of clean energy it could produce if commercialised is unprecedented. There would be enough energy produced to power homes for thousands of years and it would be completely free of carbon.
History of nuclear fusion
The theory of nuclear fusion was first speculated in the 1920s when British astrophysicist Arthur Eddington published a paper suggesting stars drew their energy from the fusion of hydrogen into helium. At the time, what stars consisted of and the source of their energy was a complete mystery.
One of the brains behind the atomic and hydrogen bomb, Hans Bethe, later went on to prove this theory in the lab – consequently winning a Nobel Prize.
In the following decades, active efforts were made to replicate the nuclear fusion process using the Soviet-born tokamak, a doughnut-shaped machine which uses magnetic fields to confine a plasma – a hot gas of ions and free electrons.
It was time the UK got in on the act, and Culham, near Oxford was given the honour of being the UK’s laboratory for nuclear fusion research. The sleepy village’s airfield came under the wing of the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) in 1960 and transformed into the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE).
It was at here that the Joint European Torus (JET) project was introduced in the 1980s, a pan-European research project and home to the world’s most advanced tokamak.
JET’s success ultimately led to the international nuclear fusion research project ITER (the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) in southern France. The brainchild of Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan, ITER will be the largest tokamak in the world once fully completed in 2035.
Where are we currently with nuclear fusion?
The aim for the international community is to achieve a breakthrough in commercialising nuclear fusion. That’s difficult, and there’s a decades-old joke in the nuclear fusion industry that commercial fusion is always about 30 years away.
To achieve it, scientists need to create more energy from nuclear fusion than it takes to power the reaction.
At the dawn of 2022, scientists claimed a major nuclear fusion breakthrough when JET produced the most amount of fusion energy than ever before.
Although it still took more energy to use than to produce, scientists claimed this could be overcome when plasmas are scaled up – like at ITER, which hopes to achieve breakeven and then a ten-fold return on power.
At the end of the year, scientists in California then achieved a net energy gain from a fusion reaction for the first time in history using 192 lasers rather than a tokamak – what is known as inertial fusion. However, the total energy needed for the lasers and the project itself still consumed more energy than was produced.
For fusion to be truly commercially viable, the energy output would need to be significantly more and over a much longer period.
That achievement has let inertial fusion into the room, though, which to date has only attracted a small slice of nuclear fusion investment. Something which will now likely change.
To scale up the UK’s fusion operations, the Government has announced that West Burton in Nottinghamshire will be the site for the UK’s prototype fusion energy plant – an area currently dominated by a large power station – with the aim of being built by 2040. UKAEA will produce a concept design for this by the end of this year.
The plant will be the home of the STEP programme (Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production) which the UK Government will pump £220m to.
Who’s developing nuclear fusion in the UK?
Based down the road from Culham, Tokamak Energy is developing tokamaks and high temperature superconducting magnets, pursuing commercial fusion.
A spin-off from CCFE, the company employs a team of experts from the UK and around the world.
“Tokamak Energy aims to demonstrate clean, grid-ready power by the early 2030s,” its CEO Chris Kelsall tells Growth Business. “We’re looking to create significant amounts of energy to power future electricity grids, provide heat for hard to abate industrial sectors and create clean hydrogen for a range of applications.
“Our objective is to have a solution that can be low cost, and genuinely deployable in many countries to address climate change and energy security.”
Tokamak Energy signed an agreement with UKAEA in October to closely collaborate and will build a new tokamak at Culham, due to be fully operational in 2027.
“Our ST80-HTS advanced prototype will demonstrate the advantages of the spherical tokamak with HTS magnets, informing and helping us to optimise the design of our fusion pilot plant,” Kelsall says.
“The ST-E1 fusion power plant is targeting the early 2030s. Its core mission will be Q greater than around 25, and to demonstrate the capability to put electricity into the grid ahead of the first of a kind device in the mid-2030s.”
“Q” is the symbol for fusion energy gain. For perspective, ITER is setting its sights on 10, meaning a ten-fold return on power.
“From there, we are looking at global deployment.”
First Light Fusion
Based at Culham, First Light Fusion is a start-up focusing on inertial fusion – the method which saw the breakthrough in California.
In January, it signed an agreement with the UKAEA to build a demonstration facility – also at Culham – at a cost of £30m.
Over the last 12 years, the business has grown from a research-focused university project to a fully-fledged company that has developed not only a new approach for how to make fusion energy work, but what it believes is a sustainable business model based on its technology.
“We take an innovative and unique approach to fusion,” the company says. “Our approach, a form of inertial confinement fusion called projectile fusion, creates the extreme temperatures and pressures required to achieve fusion by compressing a target containing fusion fuel using a projectile travelling at a tremendous speed.
“This differs from approaches pursued by other mainstream fusion companies in that it doesn’t involve using complex, energy-intensive, expensive lasers, or magnets. First Light’s approach is simpler, cheaper, more energy-efficient, and has lower physics risk.”
First Light co-founder and CEO Nick Hawker drew inspiration for this confinement process from the pistol shrimp, a crustacean which clicks its claw to form cavities or bubbles in the surrounding water, producing a shockwave which stuns its prey. The air inside these cavities is heated as they implode, causing a plasma to form. Apart from supernovas, it’s the only known example of inertial confinement in nature that we know of.
“Our equipment is relatively simple, built-in large part from readily available components. We believe this approach accelerates the journey towards commercial fusion power as there is a large amount of existing engineering that can be leveraged and reused to realise its proposed plant design.”
Is there enough funding for nuclear fusion?
Investment into nuclear fusion is heating up. More was invested in nuclear fusion in a 12-month period than in the past decade last year with £2.5bn and £1.6bn invested respectively.
“Support for our technology has really taken off in the past two years,” Kelsall says. “The level of awareness, interest and engagement with the investment community has been palpable.
“We’re currently evaluating opportunities with potential financial investors and strategic partners to support our plans to demonstrate clean, grid-ready fusion power by the early 2030s.”
Most nuclear fusion funding comes from venture capitalists and high-net worth individuals, prompting physicists to ask the question of whether the Government, too, can do more to fuel the industry.
The research centre in Culham has been publicly funded through UKAEA, which in recent years has been a hotbed of public-private partnerships.
According to the Department for Business, Energy and Industry Strategy, the UK economy has gained £1.4bn from its £346.7m investment into fusion energy between 2009 and 2019.
Despite this, the level of investment in fusion is still dwarfed by mainstream energy sources.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of nuclear fusion?
- Produces a plentiful supply of clean energy
- Doesn’t produce radioactive waste, like nuclear fission
- Get it right, and it’s a fantastically cheap source of energy – one estimate claims it would cost £0.02 per kilowatt hour. To put that in context, for the same amount of energy electricity costs 34p and gas 10p
- Barring some miraculous breakthrough, nuclear fusion won’t be able to help global targets to reduce emissions
- If there aren’t any significant technical and technological advances, nuclear fusion will not be feasible in its current state
- We are in unchartered waters and any negative unforeseen consequences of commercial use of it could yet reveal itself
What are the chances of using nuclear fusion to power the grid in future?
Because of timeframe scientists are working on, around a quarter of scientists working at the JET facility are at the early stage of their careers, so they can hand down the baton of knowledge to the next generation.
First Light Fusion is more optimistic, betting on commercial fusion being available within the next 10 years because of the number of projects working on it around the world.
The UK’s STEP project is aiming to connect to the National Grid in the 2040s, while California-based TAE Technologies, the world’s largest fusion company, is aiming to have a commercial power plant by 2030.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), though, say widespread commercial use of nuclear fusion is expected to take place in the second half of this century, depending on funding and technical advancements. That makes it about 30 years away. |
SeSAm (Shell for Simulated Agent Systems) provides a generic environment for modelling and experimenting with agent-based simulation. We specially focused on providing a tool for the easy construction of complex models, which include dynamic interdependecies or emergent behaviour.
- Easy visual agent modelling,
- Flexible environment and situation definition,
- The whole power of a programming language,
- Integrated graphical simulation analysis ,
- Distribution of simulation runs in your LAN ,
- and many further features....
SeSAm is usefull for simulations in many application domains, such as:
- Logistics (coordination, storage layout optimization, software test,,..),
- Production (factory, optimized plans for different requirements,..)
- Traffic (avoidance of traffic jams, traffic light control, route choice..),
- Passenger Flow (market improvement, evacuation of buildings)
- Health Care (optimization of clinical processes, reduction of costs)
- Biology (understanding of insect behaviour, testing theories)
- and many other domains....
SeSAm is a tool for so called agent based simulation. Agents are active entities of the simulation and their behaviour is implemented with activity diagrams. Based on an extensive number of primitive components, a user is able to design a simulation graphically without knowing the syntax of a traditional programming language.
The model specification is executable in the same environment and the dynamics of this simulation may be observed. As there are freely configurable instruments for gathering data and scripting options for constructing simulation experiments, SeSAm is a highly valuable tool for MAS simulations especially for complex models with flexible agent behaviour and interactions. |
Submitted to: HortScience
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: April 29, 1996
Publication Date: N/A
Interpretive Summary: The development of acceptable commodity treatments for pest control and quality maintenance is important for the export and marketing of agricultural commodities. Cold treatment is a very safe and effective quarantine treatment for citrus, but its use is hampered by chilling injury to the fruit. We determined if oils in the rind of lemon play a role in causing fruit chilling injury. The rind was severely pitted after 3 weeks or more of storage at 1C. Curing the fruit at 15C for 1 week prior to cold treatment greatly reduced the amount of injury. Chilling-injured fruit released from the rind larger amounts of oils than noninjured fruit. The internal structure of the rind and oil glands did not reveal any abnormal changes as a result of chilling injury. A better understanding of the release of oils from chilling-injured fruit would assist in lessening injury in lemons for export.
Technical Abstract: Essential oils release, localization and concentration in chilling-injured and noninjured lemon (Citrus limon (L.) Burm.) fruit were investigated to enhance understanding of how chilling injury occurs in lemon. Chilling injury in the form of moderate to severe pitting of the flavedo was initially apparent after 3 weeks exposure to 1C, followed by a gradual increase in severity until termination of the experiment after 7 weeks of storage at 1C. Curing the fruit at 15C for 1 week prior to cold treatment greatly reduced the severity of injury. Release from the fruit of d- limonene, a major component of essential oil in lemon, increased with increasing amounts of chilling injury. Studies of the internal anatomy of the flavedo using confocal microscopy indicated that essential oils were present inside of the oil gland and in oil bodies outside of the gland in abundant quantities. Chilling-injured flavedo exhibited no obvious disruption of either the oil glands or the oil bodies. Extraction and quantification of d-limonene from chilling-injured and noninjured flavedo indicated that quite similar amounts of oil were present in the tissue, regardless of injury. Damage to the flavedo after 3 weeks at 1C was noted in the form of flattened or collapsed cells between the top of the gland and the epidermis, whereas collapse of the oil gland only was observed in later stages of injury development. |
A key step in the evolution of multi-cellularity has been reproduced in the lab, and it involves the death of cells. Will Ratcliff, Micheal Travisano, Ford Denison and Mark Borrello of University of Minnesota (UMN) recreated the process of cell death in multi-cellular organisms. The subject of the study – the humble Brewer’s yeast! Their work figures in the week’s issue of the prestigious journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
The Division of Labor and Cell Death!
The Brewer’s yeast is a single-celled organism and it was seen to evolve into multi-cellular families or clusters that worked as a unit, employing the principle of division of labor. This is a major step from single-celled to multi-celled organisms. A single cell needs to do all it has to sustain itself on its own. What multi-cellularity introduces is the concept of labor division and, thereby, specialization. Certain cells can specialize in a certain way, and other cells in other ways and they can then sustain each other. An important process in this organizational structure is the faculty of cell death.
Cells have an inherent program designed to ensure that they have a tendency to die. Apoptosis is the term used to describe this kind of programmed cell death. It occurs in multi-cellular organisms and is to the advantage of the living organism. How this program evolved in single-celled organisms before they clump up to form multi-cellular organisms is a major question. As Ratcliff puts it nicely, a clump is not really multi-cellular:
A cluster alone isn’t multi-cellular. But when cells in a cluster cooperate, make sacrifices for the common good, and adapt to change, that’s an evolutionary transition to multi-cellularity.
Sacrifice for a greater good – what’s the evolutionary background to that? And how long does it take?
This is how the experiment was conducted.
Saccharomyces cerevisiae or Brewer’s yeast was chosen and grown on a nutrient rich substrate in a test-tube for a day. Then they centrifuged the culture. Clusters of cells landed in the bottom of the test-tube. This was repeated every day for sixty days. What they found was that the balls of cells were not just balls of cells anymore, but had become fully-cooperative and acted as a unit. Cells remained attached after cell division and did not simply branch off. After a certain size of the cluster, cells started to die off – as if the program for apoptosis had been switched on! This was the onset of true multi-cellularity.
What about reproduction? Reproduction happened asexually as is typical for yeasts. Budding happens along ‘fault lines’ created by rows of dead cells. However, the budding process occurred only after the yeast achieved adulthood, which was ascertained by the size of the clump.
Just to point out, the greatest wonder of this is that the road from unicellularity to multi-cellularity took so little time! This hardly seems like a bottleneck evolutionary development, which occurs after a long standstill. This process took just 60 days! Two months is utterly insignificant in evolutionary timescale.
Cancer… And more
Current medical research into cancer leads one to believe that cancer is just a vestigial process of apoptosis, which can be directly traced to the origin of multicellularity. However, little is known and the researchers hope that this will shed some critical light on the whole issue. Travisano says:
Multi-cellular yeast is a valuable resource for investigating a wide variety of medically and biologically important topics. Cancer was recently described as a fossil from the origin of multi-cellularity, which can be directly investigated with the yeast system.
A lot of hope and a great opportunity all due to a humble microbe. |
A Business Analyst is a business problem solver, capable of analyzing the business to identify problems and/ or opportunities and to define solution characteristics. A Business Analyst can be a liaison between the business and technical worlds, but is not intoxicated by
||SYSTEMS ANALYST ROLES & RESPONSIBILITIES
technology, and not the end user. They provide the process, questions, and techniques to efficiently extract the information needed from the Business Users for successful application development projects. A Business Analyst can also be an integral part of strategic planning, business
innovation, or reengineering effort to help select the right projects and/or facilitate the analysis of what needs to be done to bring the
business (or part of it ) to a desired future state.
Why Business Analysis
A global resurgence in business analysis is taking place. The increased pressure to innovate, do more with less, and succeed in environments with short attention spans has organizations scrambling to build business analysis capabilities.
- Aligning business strategy with enterprise goals.
- Breaking down silos to create integrated processes and data
across organizational and political boundaries.
- Architecting processes, systems, and information to work
together in harmony.
- Optimizing technology to create new value and services for
both internal and external customers.
Business analysis is following the exponential growth of project
management as the new prerequisite, not just for project success,
but career success.
Advanced Strategies Business Analysis Transformation
More than Training…Innovation for the Entire Organization
Advanced Strategies is a registered and endorsed education provider of IIBA and PMI. Additionally courses are applicable toward business analysis certificates of completion and continuing education units from UGA Terry College of Business. For more information, Click Here
With the ever-increasing importance of Information Technology in enabling business success, the roles and responsibilities of Systems Analysts continue to evolve and expand. A renewed emphasis on business-driven solutions requires the Systems Analyst to work closely with Business Analysts to deliver full “business solutions.” Thus, the focus of today’s Systems Analysts has changed from the original programmer/analyst orientation to one where IT and business are closely partnered. The work of Systems Analysts is essential to carrying the business requirements forward through conceptual solution and design to implementation. They must have the skills and knowledge to interpret business and functional requirements as well as to design and realize processes, data and technology. As a consequence, Systems Analysts must be conversant in process analysis and able to design conceptual architectures, technical uses cases and robust processes.
This course helps organizations:
- Define a common vision of improved performance for their Systems Analyst teams.
- Examine industry directions and trends for ways to improve their effectiveness.
- Document a framework for their desired systems analysis approach including responsibilities, techniques, and interfaces to the rest of the organization.
- Determine concrete steps for ensuring that IT operations are aligned with business and technology strategies and ensuring that technology is aligned with business.
|Overview of Systems Analysis
- What is Systems Analysis?
- Evolution of the Systems Analyst Role
- The Role of the Systems Analyst in Today’s Application Development Environment
- Causes of IT Project Failure
- What Drives Development?
- Business Driven
- Appropriate Enabling Medium
- Situations are Unique
- Professional Developers
- Disciplines vs. Waterfall
|After Requirements, What’s Next?
- Conceptual Solution Design
- Business Case
- Project Definition
- Desirability Analysis
- Forecasted Schedule
- Principles and Priorities
- Obstacles and Opportunities in Your Environment
|Discovering Your Current Approach
- Activities and Roles
- Interfacing with Business Analysts
- Interfacing with Project Mgmt.
- Interfacing with Developers
|Specifying Your Future
- Assessing Opportunities and Obstacles
- Improving the Process
- What can we Offload, Outsource or Make Obsolete?
- Redefining Roles
- Specifying Instruments and Tools
|Successful Systems Analysts
- Communication Skills
- Analysis Skills
- Technical Skills
- Attitudes and Temperaments
- Other Knowledge
|Making it Happen
- Low Hanging Fruit
- Improving Your Skills
- Culture hange
- Promotion - Evolution vs. Revolution
- Priorities and Responsibility
Who Should Attend:
Systems Analysts and their managers. It is often beneficial to include representatives from project management and development in the workshop to ensure the Systems Analysts’ roles and responsibilities fit into the bigger picture.
Request It Now! |
Myelin proteolipid protein (PLP) contains one established antigenic epitope within the 131-151 amino acid sequence, with encephalitogenic activity for SJL mice (PLP139-151). In the current study, the processing and presentation of PLP by subsets of splenic antigen-presenting cells (APC) were examined by comparing their capacity to stimulate PLP-responsive T-cell clones, two of which are specific for PLP139-151, and one which is not specific for this peptide. In order to study whether PLP requires processing before its presentation by APC, PLP-pulsed and fixed APC were shown to stimulate PLP-specific T cells. However, the addition of PLP to unpulsed, fixed APC resulted in the absence of T-cell stimulation, while the ability of these fixed APC to bind antigenic peptide and efficiently present it to T cells, was demonstrated by their ability to use a synthetic peptide for the stimulation of the T cells. In order to study potentially different processing efficiencies among APC subsets, spleen cells were fractionated by adherence to plastic, and their respective APC activities were studied separately. The non-adherent (NAd) APC were unable to stimulate PLP139-151 specific T-cell clones with PLP as antigen. In contrast, a T-cell clone specific for a separate, but unidentified epitope on PLP was stimulated by NAd APC efficiently. In addition, stimulation of PLP139-151-specific T-cell clones by NAd APC did occur when the synthetic peptide instead of intact PLP was used as antigen, indicating a defect in PLP processing by the NAd APC. These results indicate that a subpopulation of splenic APC is unable to process PLP efficiently, and more specifically, may be unable to process a fragment containing the 139-151 sequence in PLP, while other antigenic fragments may be processed and subsequently presented efficiently. © 1992. |
A large duck, generally common and familiar within its extensive range. Males are distinctive with iridescent green head, yellow bill, chestnut breast, and gray body. Females are mottled brown with orange and black splotches on the bill. Found anywhere with water, including city parks, backyard creeks, and various wetland habitats. Often in flocks, and frequently mixes with other duck species. In North America, females can be tricky to distinguish from American Black Duck, Mottled Duck, and Mexican Duck where ranges overlap. Those species are all darker-bodied than Mallard. A good view of the wing can be helpful, too: white wingbars on the leading and trailing edges of the blue wing patch are bolder on Mallard. Frequently hybridizes with those species, which can be even more confusing. Any bird with extensive white in the tail or curled feathers above the tail has some Mallard genes. |
GetNodeByPoint — Finds the node-id of a node at a point location.
integer GetNodeByPoint(varchar atopology, geometry apoint, float8 tol1
Retrieves the id of a node at a point location.
The function returns an integer (id-node) given a topology, a POINT and a tolerance. If tolerance = 0 means exact intersection, otherwise retrieves the node from an interval.
apoint doesn't intersect a node, returns 0 (zero).
If use tolerance > 0 and there is more than one node near the point then an exception is thrown.
If tolerance = 0, the function uses ST_Intersects otherwise uses ST_DWithin.
Performed by the GEOS module.
These examples use edges we created in AddEdge
SELECT topology.GetNodeByPoint('ma_topo',geom, 1) As nearnode FROM ST_GeomFromEWKT('SRID=26986;POINT(227591.9 893900.4)') As geom; nearnode ---------- 2
SELECT topology.GetNodeByPoint('ma_topo',geom, 1000) As too_much_tolerance FROM ST_GeomFromEWKT('SRID=26986;POINT(227591.9 893900.4)') As geom; ----get error-- ERROR: Two or more nodes found |
|Area||14,000,000 km² (5,405,430 mi²) (280,000 km² (108,108 mi²) ice-free, 13,720,000 km² (5,297,321 mi²) ice-covered)|
|Population||~1000 (none permanent)|
|governed by the Antarctic Treaty Secretariat
|Partial Territorial claims (subject to the Antarctic Treaty System)|| Argentina
|Reserved the right to make claims|| Russia
Antarctica is Earth's southernmost continent, overlying the South Pole. Situated in the southern hemisphere and largely south of the Antarctic Circle, Antarctica is surrounded by the Southern Ocean. At 14.4 million km², it is the fifth-largest continent in area after Asia, Africa, North America, and South America; in turn, Europe and Australia are smaller. Some 98 percent of Antarctica is covered by ice, which averages at least 1.6 km in thickness.
On average, Antarctica is the coldest, driest, and windiest continent, and has the highest average elevation of all the continents. Since there is little precipitation, except at the coasts, the interior of the continent is technically the largest desert in the world. There are no permanent human residents and Antarctica has never had an indigenous population. Only cold-adapted plants and animals survive there, including penguins, fur seals, mosses, lichens, and many types of algae.
The name Antarctica comes from the Greek antarktikos, meaning "opposite to the Arctic." Although myths and speculation about a Terra Australis ("Southern Land") date back to antiquity, the first confirmed sighting of the continent is commonly accepted to have occurred in 1820 by the Russian expedition of Mikhail Lazarev and Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen. However, the continent remained largely neglected for the rest of the nineteenth century because of its hostile environment, lack of resources, and isolated location.
The Antarctic Treaty was signed in 1959 by twelve countries. To date, forty-five countries have signed the treaty. The treaty prohibits military activities and mineral mining, supports scientific research, and protects the continent's ecozone. Ongoing experiments are conducted by more than 4,000 scientists of many nationalities and with different research interests.
Belief in the existence of a Terra Australis—a vast continent located in the far south of the globe to "balance" the northern lands of Europe, Asia, and North Africa—had existed since the times of Ptolemy (first century CE), who suggested the idea in order to preserve the symmetry of all known landmasses in the world. Depictions of a large southern landmass were common in maps such as the early sixteenth century Turkish Piri Reis map. Even in the late seventeenth century, after explorers had found that South America and Australia were not part of the fabled "Antarctica," geographers believed that the continent was much larger than its actual size.
European maps continued to show this hypothetical land until Captain James Cook's ships, HMS Resolution and Adventure, crossed the Antarctic Circle on January 17, 1773, and once again in 1774. The first confirmed sightings of Antarctica took place in 1920 and is credited to captains and crews of three ships:
- Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen (a captain in the Russian Imperial Navy),
- Edward Bransfield (a captain in the British Navy), and
- Nathaniel Palmer (an American sealer out of Stonington, Connecticut).
Von Bellingshausen is reported to have sighted Antarctica on January 27, 1820, three days before Bransfield sighted land, and ten months before Palmer did so in November 1820. On that day the two-ship expedition led by Von Bellingshausen and Mikhail Petrovich Lazarev reached a point within 32 km (20 miles) of the Antarctic mainland and saw ice fields there. The first documented landing on mainland Antarctica was by the American sealer John Davis in Western Antarctica on February 7, 1821, although some historians dispute this claim.
In December 1839, as part of the United States Exploring Expedition of 1838–1842 (conducted by the United States Navy), the expedition comprised of 433 men and six ships sailed from Sydney, Australia into the Antarctic Ocean, as it was then known, and reported the discovery "of an Antarctic continent west of the Balleny Islands." That part of Antarctica was later named "Wilkes Land," after the expedition's commander, Lt. Charles Wilkes, a name it maintains to this day.
In 1841, explorer James Clark Ross passed through what is now known as the Ross Sea and discovered Ross Island (both of which were named for him). He sailed along a huge wall of ice that was later named the Ross Ice Shelf. Mount Erebus and Mount Terror are named after two ships from his expedition: HMS Erebus and Terror. Mercator Cooper landed in Eastern Antarctica on January 26, 1853.
During an expedition led by Ernest Shackleton in 1907, parties led by T. W. Edgeworth David became the first to climb Mount Erebus and to reach the South Magnetic Pole. In addition, Shackleton himself and three other members of his expedition made several firsts in December 1908–February 1909: they were the first humans to traverse the Ross Ice Shelf, the first to traverse the Transantarctic Mountain Range (via the Beardmore Glacier), and the first to set foot on the South Polar Plateau.
On December 14, 1911, a party led by Norwegian polar explorer Roald Amundsen from the ship Fram became the first to reach the geographic South Pole, using a route from the Bay of Whales and up the Axel Heiberg Glacier. One month later, the Scott Expedition reached the pole.
Richard Evelyn Byrd led several voyages to the Antarctic by plane in the 1930s and 1940s. He is credited with implementing mechanized land transport on the continent and conducting extensive geological and biological research. However, it was not until October 31, 1956, that anyone set foot on the South Pole again; on that day a U.S. Navy group led by Rear Admiral George Dufek successfully landed an aircraft there.
Centered asymmetrically around the South Pole and largely south of the Antarctic Circle, Antarctica is the southernmost continent and is surrounded by the southern waters of the World Ocean. Alternatively it is washed by the Southern Ocean or the southern Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans. It covers more than 14 million km², making it the fifth-largest continent, about 1.3 times larger than Europe. The coastline measures 17,968 km (11,160 miles) and is mostly characterized by ice formations.
Antarctica is divided in two by the Transantarctic Mountains close to the neck between the Ross Sea and the Weddell Sea. The portion west of the Weddell Sea and east of the Ross Sea is called Western Antarctica and the remainder Eastern Antarctica, because they roughly correspond to the Western and Eastern Hemispheres relative to the Greenwich meridian.
Approximately 98 percent of Antarctica is covered by the Antarctic ice sheet, a sheet of ice averaging at least one mile in thickness. The continent has approximately 90 percent of the world's ice (and thereby approximately 70 percent of the world's fresh water). If all of this ice were melted, sea levels would rise about 200 feet (61 m). In most of the interior of the continent precipitation is very low, down to 20 mm/year; in a few "blue ice" (glacial ice) areas precipitation is lower than mass loss by sublimation causing the local mass balance to be negative. In the dry valleys the same effect occurs over a rock base, leading to a desiccated landscape.
Western Antarctica is covered by the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. The sheet has been of recent concern because of the real, if small, possibility of its collapse. If the sheet were to break down, ocean levels would rise by several meters in a relatively geologically short period of time, perhaps a matter of centuries. Several Antarctic ice streams, which account for about 10 percent of the ice sheet, flow to one of the many Antarctic ice shelves.
Vinson Massif, the highest peak in Antarctica at 16,050 feet (4,892 meters), is located in the Ellsworth Mountains. Although Antarctica is home to many volcanoes, only Mount Erebus is known to be active. Located on Ross Island, Erebus is the southernmost active volcano. There is another famous volcano called Deception Island, which is famous for its giant eruption in 1970. Minor eruptions are frequent and lava flow has been observed in recent years. Other dormant volcanoes may potentially be active. In 2004, an underwater volcano was found in the Antarctic Peninsula by American and Canadian researchers. Recent evidence shows this unnamed volcano may be active.
Antarctica is home to more than 70 lakes that lie thousands of meters under the surface of the continental ice sheet. Lake Vostok, discovered beneath Russia's Vostok Station in 1996, is the largest of these subglacial lakes similar in size to Lake Ontario. It is believed that the lake has been sealed off for 25 million years. There is some evidence, in the form of ice cores drilled to about 400 m above the water line, that Vostok's waters may contain microbial life. The sealed, frozen surface of the lake shares similarities with Jupiter's moon Europa. If life is discovered in Lake Vostok, this would strengthen the argument for the possibility of life on Europa.
Flora and fauna
The climate of Antarctica does not allow extensive vegetation. A combination of freezing temperatures, poor soil quality, lack of moisture, and lack of sunlight inhibit the flourishing of plants. As a result, plant life is limited to mostly mosses and liverworts. The autotrophic community is made up of mostly protists. The flora of the continent largely consists of lichens, bryophytes, algae, and fungi. Growth generally occurs in the summer, and only for a few weeks at most.
There are more than 200 species of lichens and approximately 50 species of bryophytes, such as mosses. Seven hundred species of algae exist, most of which are phytoplankton. Multicolored snow algae and diatoms are especially abundant in the coastal regions during the summer. There are two species of flowering plants found in the Antarctic Peninsula: Deschampsia antarctica (Antarctic hair grass) and Colobanthus quitensis (Antarctic pearlwort).
Land fauna is nearly completely invertebrate. Invertebrate life includes microscopic mites, lice, nematodes, tardigrades, rotifers, krill, and springtails. The flightless midge Belgica antarctica, just 12 mm in size, is the largest land animal in Antarctica. The Snow Petrel is one of only three birds that breed exclusively in Antarctica. They have been seen at the South Pole.
A variety of marine animals exist and rely, directly or indirectly, on the phytoplankton. Antarctic sea life includes penguins, blue whales, orcas, and fur seals. The Emperor penguin is the only penguin that breeds during the winter in Antarctica, while the Adélie Penguin breeds farther south than any other penguin. The Rockhopper penguin has distinctive feathers around the eyes, giving the appearance of elaborate eyelashes. King penguins, Chinstrap penguins, and Gentoo Penguins also breed in the Antarctic. It is the male partner of both the King and Emperor penguins that is responsible for incubating the single egg for up to two months by balancing it on top of their feet and keeping it warm under a special pouch, while the female feeds out at sea.
The Antarctic fur seal was very heavily hunted in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries for its pelt by sealers from the United States and the United Kingdom. The Weddell Seal, a "true seal," is named after Sir James Weddell, commander of British sealing expeditions in the Weddell Sea. Antarctic krill, which congregates in large schools, is the keystone species of the ecosystem of the Southern Ocean, and is an important food organism for whales, seals, leopard seals, fur seals, squid, icefish, penguins, albatrosses, and many other birds.
The 1978 enactment of the Antarctic Conservation Act in the U.S. brought several restrictions to U.S. activity on the continent. The introduction of alien plants or animals can bring a criminal penalty, as can the extraction of any indigenous species. The overfishing of krill, which plays a large role in the Antarctic ecosystem, led officials to enact regulations on fishing. The Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR), a treaty that came into force in 1980, requires that regulations managing all Southern Ocean fisheries consider potential effects on the entire Antarctic ecosystem. Despite these new acts, unregulated and illegal fishing, particularly of Patagonian toothfish, remains a serious problem. The illegal fishing of toothfish has been increasing, with estimates of 32,000 tons in the year 2000.
Antarctica is the coldest place on Earth. It is a frozen desert with little precipitation; the South Pole itself receives less than 4 inches (10 cm) per year, on average. Temperatures reach a minimum of between -80°C and -90°C (-112°F and -130°F) in the interior in winter and reach a maximum of between 5°C and 15°C (41°F and 59°F) near the coast in summer. Sunburn is often a health issue as the snow surface reflects almost all of the ultraviolet light falling on it.
Eastern Antarctica is colder than its western counterpart because of its higher elevation. Weather fronts rarely penetrate far into the continent, leaving the center cold and dry. Despite the lack of precipitation over the central portion of the continent, ice there lasts for extended time periods. Heavy snowfalls are not uncommon on the coastal portion of the continent, where snowfalls of up to 1.22 meters (48 inches) in 48 hours have been recorded. At the edge of the continent, strong katabatic winds off the polar plateau often blow at storm force. In the interior, however, wind speeds are typically moderate. During summer, more solar radiation reaches the surface during clear days at the South Pole than at the equator because of the 24 hours of sunlight each day at the Pole.
Antarctica is colder than the Arctic for two reasons. First, much of the continent is more than 3 km above sea level, and temperature decreases with elevation. Second, the Arctic Ocean covers the north polar zone: The ocean's relative warmth is transferred through the icepack and prevents temperatures in the Arctic regions from reaching the extremes typical of the land surface of Antarctica.
Given the latitude, long periods of constant darkness or constant sunlight create climates unfamiliar to human beings in much of the rest of the world. The aurora australis, commonly known as the southern lights, is observed in the night sky near the South Pole. Typically the aurora appears either as a diffused glow or as "curtains" that approximately extend in the east-west direction. Each curtain consists of many parallel rays, each lined up with the local direction of the magnetic field lines, suggesting that aurora is shaped by the earth's magnetic field. Another unique spectacle is diamond dust, a ground-level cloud composed of tiny ice crystals that may continue for several days without interruption. It generally forms under otherwise clear or nearly clear skies, so people sometimes also refer to it as clear-sky precipitation. A sun dog, a frequent atmospheric optical phenomenon, is a bright "spot" beside the true sun that typically appears when the sun is low, such as at sunrise and sunset.
Geological history and paleontology
More than 170 million years ago, Antarctica was part of the supercontinent Gondwana. Over time, Gondwana gradually broke apart and Antarctica as it is known today was formed around 25 million years ago.
Paleozoic era (540-250 Mya)
During the Cambrian period, Gondwana had a mild climate. West Antarctica was partially in the northern hemisphere, and during this period large amounts of sandstones, limestones, and shales were deposited. East Antarctica was at the equator, where sea-floor invertebrates and trilobites flourished in the tropical seas. By the start of the Devonian period (416 Mya), Gondwana was in more southern latitudes and the climate was cooler, though fossils of land plants are known from this time. Sand and silts were laid down in what is now the Ellsworth, Horlick, and Pensacola Mountains. Glaciation began at the end of the Devonian period (360 Mya), as Gondwana became centered around the South Pole and the climate cooled, though flora remained. During the Permian period, the plant life became dominated by fern-like plants such as Glossopteris, which grew in swamps. Over time these swamps became deposits of coal in the Transantarctic Mountains. Towards the end of the Permian period, continued warming led to a dry, hot climate over much of Gondwana.
Mesozoic era (250-65 Mya)
As a result of continued warming, the polar ice caps melted and much of Gondwana became a desert. In East Antarctica, the seed fern became established, and large amounts of sandstone and shale were laid down at this time. The Antarctic Peninsula began to form during the Jurassic period (206-146 Mya), and islands gradually rose out of the ocean. Ginkgo trees and cycads were plentiful during this period, as were reptiles such as Lystrosaurus. In West Antarctica, coniferous forests dominated through the entire Cretaceous period (146-65 Mya), though Southern beech began to take over at the end of this period. Ammonites were common in the seas around Antarctica, and dinosaurs were also present, though only two Antarctic dinosaur species (Cryolophosaurus, from the Hanson Formation, and Antarctopelta) have been described to date. It was during this period that Gondwana began to break up.
Gondwana breakup (160-23 Mya)
Africa separated from Antarctica around 160 Mya, followed by the Indian subcontinent, in the early Cretaceous (about 125 Mya). About 65 Mya, Antarctica (then connected to Australia) still had a tropical to subtropical climate, complete with a marsupial fauna. About 40 Mya Australia-New Guinea separated from Antarctica and the first ice began to appear. Around 23 Mya, the Drake Passage opened between Antarctica and South America, which resulted in the Antarctic Circumpolar Current. The ice spread, replacing the forests that then covered the continent. Since about 15 Mya, the continent has been mostly covered with ice.
Geology of present-day Antarctica
The geological study of Antarctica has been greatly hindered by the fact that nearly all of the continent is permanently covered with a thick layer of ice. However, new techniques such as remote sensing, ground-penetrating radar, and satellite imagery have begun to reveal the structures beneath the ice.
Geologically, West Antarctica closely resembles the Andes mountain range of South America. The Antarctic Peninsula was formed by uplift and metamorphism of sea-bed sediments during the late Paleozoic and the early Mesozoic eras. This sediment uplift was accompanied by igneous intrusions and volcanism. The most common rocks in West Antarctica are andesite and rhyolite volcanics formed during the Jurassic period. There is also evidence of volcanic activity, even after the ice sheet had formed, in Marie Byrd Land and Alexander Island. The only anomalous area of West Antarctica is the Ellsworth Mountains region, where the stratigraphy is more similar to the eastern part of the continent.
East Antarctica is geologically varied, dating from the Precambrian era, with some rocks formed more than 3 billion years ago. It is composed of a metamorphic and igneous platform which is the basis of the continental shield. On top of this base are various modern rocks, such as sandstones, limestones, coal, and shales laid down during the Devonian and Jurassic periods to form the Transantarctic Mountains. In coastal areas such as Shackleton Range and Victoria Land some faulting has occurred.
The main mineral resource known on the continent is coal. It was first recorded near the Beardmore Glacier by Frank Wild on the Nimrod Expedition, and now low-grade coal is known across many parts of the Transantarctic Mountains. The Prince Charles Mountains contain significant deposits of iron ore. The most valuable resources of Antarctica lie offshore, namely the oil and natural gas fields found in the Ross Sea in 1973. Exploitation of all mineral resources is banned until 2048 by the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty.
Antarctica has no permanent residents, but a number of governments maintain permanent research stations throughout the continent. The number of people conducting and supporting scientific research and other work on the continent and its nearby islands varies from approximately 4,000 in summer to about 1,000 in winter. Many of the stations are staffed year-round.
The first semi-permanent inhabitants of regions near Antarctica (areas situated south of the Antarctic Convergence) were British and American sealers who often spent a year or more on South Georgia Island, beginning in 1786. During the whaling era, which lasted until 1966, the population of that island varied from over 1,000 in the summer (over 2,000 in some years) to some 200 in the winter. Most of the whalers were Norwegian, with an increasing proportion of Britons. The settlements included Grytviken, Leith Harbour, King Edward Point, Stomness, Husvik, Prince Olav Harbour, Ocean Harbour, and Godthul. Managers and other senior officers of the whaling stations often lived together with their families. Among them was the founder of Grytviken, Captain Carl Anton Larsen, a prominent Norwegian whaler and explorer who adopted British citizenship in 1910, along with his family.
The first child born in the southern polar region was Norwegian girl Solveig Gunbjörg Jacobsen, born in Grytviken on October 8, 1913, with her birth being registered by the resident British Magistrate of South Georgia. She was a daughter of Fridthjof Jacobsen, the assistant manager of the whaling station, and of Klara Olette Jacobsen. Jacobsen arrived on the island in 1904 to become the manager of Grytviken, serving from 1914 to 1921; two of his children were born on the island.
Emilio Marcos Palma was the first person born on the Antarctic mainland, at Base Esperanza in 1978; his parents were sent there along with seven other families by the Argentinean government to determine if family life was suitable on the continent. In 1986, Juan Pablo Camacho was born at the Presidente Eduardo Frei Montalva Base, becoming the first Chilean born in Antarctica. Several bases are now home to families with children attending schools at the station.
As the only uninhabited continent, Antarctica has no government and belongs to no country. Various countries claim areas of it, although as a rule, no other countries recognize such claims. The area between 90°W and 150°W is the only part of Antarctica, indeed the only solid land on Earth, not claimed by any country.
Since 1959, claims on Antarctica have been suspended and the continent is considered politically neutral. Its status is regulated by the 1959 Antarctic Treaty and other related agreements, collectively called the Antarctic Treaty System. For the purposes of the Treaty System, Antarctica is defined as all land and ice shelves south of 60°S. The treaty was signed by twelve countries, including the Soviet Union (and later Russia), the United Kingdom, and the United States. It set aside Antarctica as a scientific preserve, established freedom of scientific investigation, environmental protection, and banned military activity on that continent. This was the first arms control agreement established during the Cold War.
The Antarctic Treaty prohibits any military activity in Antarctica, such as the establishment of military bases and fortifications, the carrying out of military maneuvers, or the testing of any type of weapon. Military personnel or equipment are permitted only for scientific research or for other peaceful purposes. The only documented land military maneuver was Operation NINETY, undertaken by the Argentine military.
The United States military issues the Antarctica Service Medal to military members or civilians who perform research duty in Antarctica. The medal includes a "wintered over" bar issued to those who remain on the continent for two complete six-month seasons.
The Antarctic Treaty
The main treaty was opened for signature on December 1, 1959, and officially entered into force on June 23, 1961. The original signatories were the 12 countries active in Antarctica during the International Geophysical Year of 1957-58 and willing to accept a U.S. invitation to the conference at which the treaty was negotiated. These countries were Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Chile, France, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, South Africa, the USSR, the United Kingdom, and the United States (which opened the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station for the International Geophysical Year).
Articles of the Antarctic Treaty
- Article 1—area to be used for peaceful purposes only; military activity, such as weapons testing, is prohibited, but military personnel and equipment may be used for scientific research or any other peaceful purpose;
- Article 2—freedom of scientific investigation and cooperation shall continue;
- Article 3—free exchange of information and personnel in cooperation with the United Nations and other international agencies;
- Article 4—does not recognize, dispute, or establish territorial claims and no new claims shall be asserted while the treaty is in force;
- Article 5—prohibits nuclear explosions or disposal of radioactive wastes;
- Article 6—includes under the treaty all land and ice shelves south of 60 degrees 00 minutes south;
- Article 7—treaty-state observers have free access, including aerial observation, to any area and may inspect all stations, installations, and equipment; advance notice of all activities and of the introduction of military personnel must be given;
- Article 8—allows for jurisdiction over observers and scientists by their own states;
- Article 9—frequent consultative meetings take place among member nations;
- Article 10—treaty states will discourage activities by any country in Antarctica that are contrary to the treaty;
- Article 11—disputes to be settled peacefully by the parties concerned or, ultimately, by the International Court of Justice;
- Articles 12, 13, 14—deal with upholding, interpreting, and amending the treaty among involved nations.
The main objective of the ATS is to ensure in the interests of all humanity that Antarctica shall continue forever to be used exclusively for peaceful purposes and shall not become the scene or object of international discord. The treaty forbids any measures of a military nature, but not the presence of military personnel per se. It avoided addressing the question of existing territorial claims asserted by some nations and not recognized by others.
Other agreements, some 200 recommendations adopted at treaty consultative meetings and ratified by governments, include:
- Agreed Measures for the Conservation of Antarctic Fauna and Flora (1964) (entered into force in 1982)
- The Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Seals (1972)
- The Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (1980)
- The Convention on the Regulation of Antarctic Mineral Resource Activities (1988) (although it was signed in 1988, it was subsequently rejected and never entered into force)
- The Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty was signed October 4, 1991 and entered into force January 14, 1998; this agreement prevents development and provides for the protection of the Antarctic environment through five specific annexes on marine pollution, fauna, and flora, environmental impact assessments, waste management, and protected areas. It prohibits all activities relating to mineral resources except scientific.
Although coal, hydrocarbons, iron ore, platinum, copper, chromium, nickel, gold, and other minerals have been found, they have not been located in large enough quantities to exploit. The 1991 Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty also restricts a struggle for resources. In 1998, a compromise agreement was reached to add a 50-year ban on mining until the year 2048, further limiting economic development and exploitation. The primary agricultural activity is the capture and offshore trading of fish. Antarctic fisheries in 2000-01 reported landing 112,934 tons.
Small-scale tourism has existed since 1957 and is currently largely self-regulated by the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators (IAATO). However, not all vessels associated with Antarctic tourism are members of IAATO. Several ships transport people to Antarctica to visit specific scenic locations. A total of 27,950 tourists visited in the 2004-05 Antarctic summer with nearly all of them coming from commercial ships. The number is predicted to increase to over 80,000 by 2010. There has been some recent concern over the adverse environmental and ecosystem effects caused by the influx of visitors. A call for stricter regulations for ships and a tourism quota have been made by some environmentalists and scientists. Antarctic sightseeing flights (which did not land) operated out of Australia and New Zealand until the fatal crash of Air New Zealand Flight 901 in 1979 on Mount Erebus, which killed all 257 aboard. Qantas Airlines resumed commercial overflights to Antarctica from Australia in the mid-1990s.
Transportation on the continent has transformed from heroic explorers crossing the isolated remote area of Antarctica on foot to a more open area due to human technologies enabling more convenient and faster transport by land and predominantly air and water.
Aircraft and pilots need to be capable of landing on ice, snow, or gravel runways, as there are no paved runways. Landings are generally restricted to the daylight season (Summer months from October to March). Winter landings have been performed at Williams Field but low temperatures mean that aircraft cannot stay on the ice longer than an hour or so, as their skis may freeze to the ice runway. Travel is normally by military aircraft delivering cargo.
Major landing fields include:
- Williams Field—Serves McMurdo Station and Scott Base.
- Pegasus Blue-Ice Runway—Serves McMurdo Station and Scott Base.
- Annual Sea-Ice Runway—Serves McMurdo Station and Scott Base.
In the Antarctic summer, several companies offer excursions on ice-strengthened vessels to Antarctica. Ice-strengthened (not quite as tough as icebreaker) boats are preferred since icebreakers are round on the bottom—a configuration that amplifies the already massive wave action in the Drake passage.
Each year, scientists from 27 different nations conduct experiments not reproducible in any other place in the world. In the summer more than 4,000 scientists operate research stations; this number decreases to nearly 1,000 in the winter. McMurdo Station is capable of housing more than 1,000 scientists, visitors, and tourists.
Researchers include biologists, geologists, oceanographers, physicists, astronomers, glaciologists, and meteorologists. Geologists tend to study plate tectonics, meteorites from space, and resources from the breakup of the super continent Gondwanaland. Glaciologists in Antarctica are concerned with the study of the history and dynamics of floating ice, seasonal snow, glaciers, and ice sheets. Biologists, in addition to examining the wildlife, are interested in how harsh temperatures and the presence of people affect adaptation and survival strategies in a wide variety of organisms. Medical physicians have made discoveries concerning the spreading of viruses and the body's response to extreme seasonal temperatures. Astrophysicists at Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station study the celestial dome and cosmic microwave background radiation.
Many astronomical observations are better made from the interior of Antarctica than from most surface locations because of the high elevation, which results in a thin atmosphere and low temperature, which minimizes the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere, thus allowing for a view of space clearer than anywhere else on Earth. Antarctic ice serves as both the shield and the detection medium for the largest neutrino telescope in the world, built 2 km below Amundsen-Scott station.
Since the 1970s, an important focus of study has been the ozone layer in the atmosphere above Antarctica. In 1985, three British Scientists working on data they had gathered at Halley Station on the Brunt Ice Shelf discovered the existence of a hole in this layer. In 1998, NASA satellite data showed that the Antarctic ozone hole was the largest on record, covering 27 million square kilometers. It was eventually determined that the destruction of the ozone was caused by chlorofluorocarbons emitted by human products. With the ban of CFCs in the Montreal Protocol of 1989, it is believed that the ozone hole will close up over the next fifty years.
Meteorites from Antarctica are an important area of study about material formed early in the solar system; most are thought to come from asteroids, but some may have originated on larger planets. The first Antarctic meteorites were found in 1912. In 1969, a Japanese expedition discovered nine meteorites. Most of these meteorites have fallen onto the ice sheet in the last million years. Motion of the ice sheet tends to concentrate the meteorites at blocking locations such as mountain ranges, with wind erosion bringing them to the surface after centuries beneath accumulated snowfall. Compared with meteorites collected in more temperate regions on Earth, the Antarctic meteorites are well-preserved.
This large collection of meteorites allows a better understanding of the abundance of meteorite types in the solar system and how meteorites relate to asteroids and comets. New types of meteorites and rare meteorites have been found. Among these are pieces blasted off the moon, and probably Mars, by impacts. These specimens, particularly ALH84001 discovered by ANSMET, are at the center of the controversy about possible evidence of microbial life on Mars. Because meteorites in space absorb and record cosmic radiation, the time elapsed since the meteorite hit the Earth can be determined from laboratory studies. The elapsed time since fall, or terrestrial residence age, of a meteorite represents more information that might be useful in environmental studies of Antarctic ice sheets.
In 2006, a team of researchers from Ohio State University used gravity measurements by NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites to discover the 300-mile-wide Wilkes Land crater, which probably formed about 250 million years ago.
- ↑ National Geophysical Data Center, NOAA Satellite and Information Services. Retrieved May 25, 2007.
- ↑ The Mariner's Museum, Age of Exploration. Retrieved May 25, 2007.
- ↑ SouthPole.com, James Clark Ross. Retrieved May 25, 2007.
- ↑ Australian Antarctic Division, Tannatt William Edgeworth David. Retrieved May 25, 2007.
- ↑ SouthPole.com, Roald Amundsen. Retrieved May 25, 2007.
- ↑ National Science Foundation, Scientists Discover Undersea Volcano Off Antarctica. Retrieved May 25, 2007.
- ↑ Lisa Asselbergs, Creatures of Antarctica. Retrieved May 25, 2007.
- ↑ Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research, The Antarctic Treaty System: An Introduction. Retrieved May 25, 2007.
- ↑ Antarctica Institute of Argentina, Argentina in Antarctica. Retrieved May 25, 2007.
- ↑ International Association of Antarctica TourOperations, Tourism Statistics. Retrieved May 25, 2007.
- ↑ Antarctic Connection, Science in Antarctica. Retrieved May 25, 2007.
- ↑ NASA Astromaterials Curation, Meteorites from Antarctica. Retrieved May 25, 2007.
- ↑ Ohio State Research, Bang in Antarctica. Retrieved May 25, 2007.
- Bledsoe, Lucy Jane. 2006. How to survive in Antarctica. New York: Holiday House. ISBN 0823418901
- Ley, Willy. 1962. The poles. Life nature library. New York: Time, Inc.
- Petersen, David. 1998. Antarctica. A true book. New York: Children's Press. ISBN 0516207709
- Robinson, Kim Stanley. 1998. Antarctica. New York: Bantam Books. ISBN 0553100637
- United States. 2002. Antarctic region. Washington, DC: Central Intelligence Agency.
All links retrieved October 16, 2012.
- Antarctica. The Open Directory Project.
- Discovering Antarctica.
- Antarctica Pictures, Information and Travel Cool Antarctica.
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The bulging detector window causes a large-scale spatial non-linearity (counter gas pressure 1.5bar, bulging 1.2mm). The primary electron cloud drifts along the electric field lines which run perpendicular to the equipotential plane (PSPC entrance window). Thus event positions within the central ring of the window support structure are slightly shifted towards the detector center while for event positions outside the central ring the shift depends on the event position. (cf. Fig. F.12 and Fig. F.13, top) This shifting introduces spatial non-linearities. The shape of the correction has been determined at a photon energy of E=0.3keV, the positional and energy-dependent effects were assumed to be separable. The energy-dependent term is a smooth function of the energy (cf. Fig. F.13, bottom). Is is normalized to unity at E=0.3keV.
In practice SASS determines the shift using a binned map with 512 512 pixels, i.e., uses a grid of bin size 16 detector pixels and has to interpolate between four neighboring grid point. The interpolation of the correction vector is performed according to Eq. (F.13) and (F.14).
Within SASS the energy dependent scale factor is taken from a table with 256 elements (channels). For the value is taken instead.
Figure F.12: Window correction tables for PSPC-B. The `Golden Disk' (arrays and ): The position correction in x and y is plotted for every 8th's array element; the energy is assumed to be 0.93keV, for which the energy dependent factor of the position correction equals 1.0. The origin of the displacement vector of element (n,m) is drawn at . The basic information was taken from files p$manpar:tabx_093_b.dat and p$manpar:taby_093_b.dat.
Figure F.13: Window correction data files according to Eqs.(F.13) and (F.14): top panel: shift of coordinates for PSPC-C: white corresponds to negative values and black to positive (top left: , top right: ). Bottom panel: energy dependent factor , normalized to unity at 0.93keV. The basic information was taken from files p$manpar:tabx_093_c.dat, p$manpar:taby_093_c.dat, and p$manpar:scal3_new.dat.
SASS source code: package PSPC, bubble CT, subroutine DCORW |
This book provides readers with the fundamentals of the Constitution by analyzing the legitimate basis for government, and the circumstances that lead to its ratification. Mr. Badnarik starts with fundamentals, identifying the difference between rights and privileges. He discusses the critical- and needed- distinction between republican and democratic systems of government, arguing that freedom can survive in America only if we return to our republican roots. He also illustrates the forgotten tenets of federalism and states’ rights, arguing that federal usurpation of state power has accelerated the loss of our freedoms. The author then provides a detailed explication of the true meaning of major constitutional provisions and amendments.He does an excellent job of demystifying our founding document, demonstrating that ordinary Americans can and should understand the Constitution and how it applies to their lives. |
Inform anyone treating you that you CANNOT have any shortwave diathermy, microwave diathermy or therapeutic ultrasound diathermy (all now referred to as diathermy) anywhere on your body because you have an implanted neurostimulation system. Energy from diathermy can be transferred through your implanted system, can cause tissue damage and can result in severe injury or death.
Diathermy can also damage parts of your neurostimulation system. This can result in loss of therapy from your neurostimulation system, and may require additional surgery to remove or replace parts of your implanted device. Injury or damage can occur during diathermy treatment whether your neurostimulation system is turned “on” or “off.”
Patient Letter, dated May 18, 2001
The purpose of this letter is to inform you that you should not have shortwave diathermy, microwave diathermy or therapeutic ultrasound diathermy (all now referred to as diathermy) if you have an implanted neurostimulation device. Diathermy provides optional treatments for the following purposes:
When the energy from diathermy therapy interacts with neurostimulation devices, it can cause permanent nerve or tissue damage and result in severe injury or death. Therefore, DO NOT RECEIVE ANY DIATHERMY.
Please note that the permanent nerve or tissue injury is not caused by a device malfunction. Rather, it is caused by the interaction of two devices (neurostimulation system and diathermy machine) when they are working properly.
There have been two known cases where patients with implanted deep brain stimulation systems received shortwave therapy (diathermy). In both cases, the therapy interacted with the implanted neurostimulation system and caused severe and permanent brain damage. Both patients are still in comas.
What are shortwave diathermy, microwave diathermy and therapeutic ultrasound diathermy treatments?
Diathermy, pronounced (di´-a-thur-me) are treatments that deliver energy to treat specific areas of the body. These treatments are typically used for the following purposes:
Your doctor can answer any questions you may have about diathermy therapy or alternative treatments.
Diathermy is used by a variety of health care professionals, including physical therapists, nurses, chiropractors, dentists, sports therapists, ophthalmologists, and others. Health care professionals may refer to diathermy using the term “deep heat” or similar terms. Diathermy means deep heat, but these devices may also be used in a way that causes little or no heating.
What Should You Do?
First and foremost, do not receive any shortwave diathermy, microwave diathermy or therapeutic ultrasound diathermy, just as you would avoid a medicine to which you are seriously allergic. Before receiving any treatment, you should inform every health care professional (such as doctors, dentists, chiropractors, sports therapists, or physical therapists) that you have an implanted neurostimulation device. Follow these steps whenever you see any health care professional:
If you have any questions about this communication or your therapy, please contact the doctor who manages your neurostimulation treatment or contact Medtronic directly at 1-800-328-0810.
If you have an implanted neurostimulation device, please ensure that you continue to receive important information from Medtronic regarding your device.
Inform us of any changes in your contact information by calling the number above. Please be assured we will not sell, exchange, or publish the contact information that you send us. |
| Black-tailed Jackrabbits are tremendous leapers, able to jump more than 6 m horizontally. They live in some of the hottest and driest regions of the continent, can survive on poor-quality foods, and get most or all of the water they need from their food. Where they can, they eat green vegetation, but they can survive in parts of the Southwest where creosote-bush forms a large part of their diet. They cope with extreme heat by lowering their metabolism and resting in the shade during the day, which conserves water. They get rid of extra salt through their urine, and blood flows close to the skin in their enormous ears, a cooling mechanism. Although mostly nocturnal and solitary, large groups sometimes form near a good food supply. With their typically high reproductive output, Black-tails can be agricultural pests, and there were periods in the 1800s and 1900s when aggressive rabbit drives herded and destroyed 5,000-6,000 animal in a single day. In spite of this, they are quite common and widespread.
Also known as:
Gray, J.E., 1837. Description of some new or little known Mammalia, principally in the British Museum Collection, p. 586. The Magazine of Natural History, and Journal of Zoology, Botany, Mineralogy, Geology, and Meteorology, New Series, 1:577-587.
Mammal Species of the World (opens in a new window).
Mammalian Species, American Society of Mammalogists' species account (opens in a new window).
Click to enlarge this image. |
Weekly Health Tip: High-Fructose Corn Syrup: What Are the Dangers?
Processed foods are one of the things people are often told to cut back on when they’re trying to follow a healthy diet. In recent years, one particular processed food ingredient, known as high-fructose corn syrup, has been singled out as a possible health risk. Some researchers have suggested that it might be linked to a rise in obesity rates and related health problems like diabetes. What exactly is high-fructose corn syrup? Is it really bad for you?
Processing corn into a sweet liquid Humans have been processing food for centuries, if you consider that “processing” means altering a raw food in order to make it safer, to make it last longer, or to make it taste better. Some of the earliest food processing techniques included using salt to preserve meat and fish and using vinegar to pickle vegetables. Food processing has changed a lot since then, especially with advances in technology. High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is just one example of how sophisticated food processing has become. HFCS is made by using chemicals to transform the starch that occurs naturally in corn into a sweet liquid called corn syrup, made of glucose. The corn syrup is further processed in order to boost its sweetness. An enzyme is added that changes some of the glucose into much-sweeter fructose in a 42/55 proportion, to be exact. (The other 3% is other carbohydrates.) That’s where the “high-fructose” in the name comes from.
High-fructose corn syrup was developed in the 1970s as a cheap, versatile replacement for sugar. During the next 30 years, its use skyrocketed. Today it has replaced sugar as the most common added sweetener in sodas and many other beverages. It is also used in many packaged and processed foods, both as a sweetener and to keep food fresh and prevent browning. It can be found in everything from ketchup, salad dressing, bread, and cereals, to lunchmeats, cookies, and chips.
How is HFCS different from sugar? And is HFCS worse for you than other sugars? Two common sugars in our diet are fructose and sucrose. Fructose occurs naturally in fruits and honey and, as described above, it can be synthesized from corn to create HFCS. Sucrose, or table sugar, is structurally similar to HFCS–its glucose/fructose ratio is 50/50. In many fruits, naturally occurring fructose is found in relatively small amounts. For example, a cup of blueberries contains about 30 calories’ worth. In contrast, many processed foods containing sucrose or HFCS harbor dense concentrations of fructose. A single 12-ounce soda has approximately 80 calories’ worth of fructose (1).
A 2004 study sparked controversy by suggesting that the obesity epidemic in the U.S.—and related health problems like diabetes and high blood pressure—might be linked to the rise of HFCS as the dominant sweetener in soft drinks and other foods. The study suggested that the body digests and metabolizes fructose in liquid form differently from the way it processes glucose. More recent research indicates that the liver processes fructose by converting much of it directly into fat and shipping it to fat tissue. Over time, excessive conversion of fructose to fat results in fatty deposits in the liver, leading to a condition known as “fatty liver disease.” (1) In addition to fatty liver disease, the American Heart Association has recognized that excessive fructose consumption appears to be associated with an array of other health problems. They include increased triglyceride levels in the bloodstream, obesity, type 2 diabetes, and hypertension.
The question of whether HFCS is worse for our health than sucrose is still being studied, and there are differing opinions on the topic. Many researchers believe that HFCS and sucrose are essentially identical and have similar effects on the body. However, a recent study out of Princeton University suggests that HFCS may impact our bodies differently, leading to more significant weight gain, especially in the abdominal region, and a greater increase in triglyceride levels than what sucrose contributes.
How much is too much? How much added sugar is ok to eat? The American Heart Association recommends that women consume no more than 100 calories a day from added sugar and men take in no more than 150 calories per day, although less is better. That translates into about 6 teaspoons for women and 9 teaspoons for men. Currently, the average American takes in about 12 teaspoons of high-fructose corn syrup alone per day. That doesn’t include other sugars like sucrose, maltose, and lactose. Some teens and other high-consuming groups take in as much as 80% more HFCS than the average person.
Tips for reducing sugar How do you bring your sugar intake down to a safe level? Moderate your consumption of foods and beverages that contain high levels of sugar. That means avoiding sugary sodas, moderating consumption of 100% fruit juices, and drinking more water. Choose breakfast cereals that contain no added sugars or only small amounts of them. Add fresh fruit to your cereal if you crave a sweeter flavor. Check ingredient labels on packaged and processed foods for added sugars. Look not just for high-fructose corn syrup (sometimes called corn sugar), but also sugar, brown sugar, glucose, dextrose, fructose, fruit juice concentrates, molasses, and syrup.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends substituting foods with naturally occurring sugars in them, like fruits, vegetables, and milk products for foods with sugars that are added during food processing. That way, you avoid eating empty calories, since foods with added sugars tend to have fewer nutrients than foods with naturally occurring sugars. Instead of snacking on cookies, candy, or chips, try fruit, low-fat cheese, or vegetables instead. Once you get used to the taste of foods that don’t have added or processed sweeteners, you’ll find that not only are they good for you, they taste good, too!
Learn more about maintaining your health and well-being:
(1) Taube G. Why we get fat and what to do about it. New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf; 2011. |
"Spam" messages are unsolicited and unwanted calls from commercial advertisers or phone scammers. YouMail allows you to flag these calls in your online inbox so that YouMail’s Public Directory will know to automatically block them.
To mark a number as spam:
1. Log into your account on the YouMail website
2. Select the “Inbox” tab on the top of the screen
3. Go to the folder with the message you wish to mark as spam
4. Select the message you wish to mark as spam
5. Click “Report Spam”
6. Double-check the number and caller name. Leave a comment if you wish
7. Click “Submit”
Once completed, this message will be moved to your spam folder and the YouMail Public Directory will flag this number as a spammer for other callers as well. By default, calls from flagged spammers will automatically get sent to your spam folder. |
Sending Data from Splunk To Database Using DB Connect ( DBX – Part 3)
In this post we are covering how to to create an output in the “Splunk DB Connect” application and get the most out of your database with Splunk.
Creating an “Output” in “Splunk DB Connect” application
Step-1: Navigate to the “Outputs” page, and click on the “New output” button.
Step-2: Set up Search,
Search/Saved Search : Select whether you want to write a new search or you want to use a saved search.
Run the search to check the output of your search/saved search.
Once you are satisfied with the output, click on the “Next” button.
Step-3: Choose Table,
Connection : Select the connection you want to use
for this input.
Catalog : Select the Catalog (if available).
Schema : Select the Schema from your database.
Table : Search for the table/click on the table
name where you want to push the data
Here, we are using a table “METHOD_INFO”,
Verify the “Table Schema”and click on the “Next” button.
Step-4: Fields Mapping
Fields Mapping Section:
Here, you map the data fields from Splunk to the database table. You just need to click on the “Search fields” and the corresponding “Table Contents”.
You can add multiple search fields by clicking on the “Add Search Field” button.
Enabling this behavior overrides any rows with the same values, you need to choose a column that can be used as a “key”.
Click on the “Next” button to move further into the configuration.
Step-5: Set properties,
Name : Provide a unique name for this output.
Description (Optional): Add a description about what
this output does.
Application: Select the app context.
Query Timeout : Specify how long to wait for the query to
Scheduling : Click on the box to enable scheduling for
this output, otherwise the output behaves as
a single shot query.
Execution Frequency : Set the time interval(s) at which
this query should run (CRON Expression).
Click on the “Finish” button to finish the configuration.
You should get the “Done” screen as shown below.
Step-5: Now you will be to see the data in the database. You can check with Database Team to verify whether data has been stored into the database or not. See the below screenshot for our database.
Additionally, you can use the “SQL Explorer” to test/experiment with your SQL queries before you use them to create inputs/outputs etc.
Hope, this post was worth a read. If you want to know more about the DB connect configuration and operations please visit the below links. |
Do you suffer from depression and have you noticed that this has improved because of the MIR-Method, or has it even disappeared altogether? That’s great!
We’d like to hear from you about what has improved! Please answer these questions:
1. How long have you done the MIR-Method?
2. How did the MIR-Method help you and what changes did it bring to your life?
At the bottom of this page is a form, which you can use to report your results. By clicking on “End”, you’ll jump to the form.
Would you like to read more on this subject? Please read the articles Mireille Mettes wrote about the following subjects:
* the point of walking;
* following your heart;
* let go, straighten up and throw away;
* clarify mission about your hobby;
* your sense of humor;
* when people don’t believe you;
* solving conflicts in 5 steps.;
* self forgiveness;
* the 5-minute super trick;
* clenched jaws; |
The formation of Saccharomyces cerevisiae cell wall requires the coordinated activity of enzymes involved in the biosynthesis and modification of its components, such as glucans. The β-(1,3)-glucan synthase complexes, that have Fks proteins as putative catalytic subunits, use UDP-glucose as a substrate and catalyse the synthesis and vectorial extrusion of glucan chains into the outer space. Then, β-(1,3)-glucan chains are branched, elongated and remodelled in order to create a robust texture capable of counteracting the high internal pressure and determining cell morphology. β-(1,3)-glucan is the main component of the vegetative cell wall and one of the most abundant polymers of the spore wall. Several enzymes belonging to the family GH72 of glycosyl hydrolases have been identified in fungi. These enzymes are responsible of the lateral elongation of β-(1,3)-glucan, thus contributing to the assembly and organization of the glucan layer. The multigene GAS family of S. cerevisiae is composed of five members, GAS1-5, involved in cell wall maintenance. They share significant similarity with Aspergillus fumigatus GEL1 and GEL2, and with Candida albicans PHR1 and PHR2. Similar to the most extensively characterized member, Gas1p, the remaining Gas proteins are β-(1,3)-glucanosyltransferases involved in cell wall assembly and maintenance. Based on their expression patterns, they appear to play partially overlapping roles throughout the yeast life cycle: GAS1 and GAS5 are expressed during vegetative growth, whereas GAS2 and GAS4 are expressed exclusively during sporulation and required for normal spore wall formation, finally GAS3 is a weakly expressed gene. Thus these enzymes could satisfy the cellular needs to remodel β-(1,3)-glucan in different physiological conditions and in different conformations along the yeast life cell cycle. Moreover, considering its role in yeast cell biology, the GAS enzyme family represents a very promising molecular target for new antifungal drugs. During my PhD thesis I focused my interest on the functional characterization of GAS1, 2, 3 and 4 in various stages of the yeast life cycle: vegetative growth, meiosis, sporulation and spore germination. This study is aimed to understand the biological significance of the developmentally regulated requirement of the specific members of the GAS redundant family in the morphological stages of yeast life cycle. GAS2 and GAS4 genes are specifically induced during sporulation and encode for glycoproteins. The effects of the loss of Gas2 and Gas4 proteins on spore wall morphogenesis are dramatic. Synthesis of all the layers of the spore cell wall occurs, but the accumulation and organization of wall material is abnormal. The lack of the elongase activity of Gas2 and Gas4 proteins in the double mutant might cause the formation of shorter or less branched β(1,3)-glucan chains in the inner layer of the spore wall. Thus, the connection of the outermost layers to a less compact glucan network could make the spore wall more fragile and easily stripped under harsh conditions. These defects cause an increase in spore permeability to exogenous substances, a decrease in refractivity, and a marked decrease in spore viability. The possible execution point for GAS2 and GAS4 could be between the synthesis and organization of β(1,3)-glucan and, more specifically, in the elongation of the β(1,3)-glucan chains. Consistently with their role, during sporulation Gas2 and Gas4 proteins localize at the newly assembling prospore membrane during the meiotic divisions and in mature ascospore the proteins decorate the spore periphery. A slight difference in the protein patterns of fluorescence on the spore suggests that Gas2p and Gas4p final localization could be respectively the spore wall and the prospore membrane. In this work, an extensive study of the localization of the Gas1 protein during the yeast life cycle was performed, taking advantage of a GFP-tagged version of the protein. During vegetative growth Gas1p has a dual localization: in the plasma membrane and at the site of bud emergence, particularly in the neck, in the chitin ring that surrounds the neck region and in the bud scars where Gas1p remains after cytokinesis. At the neck region Gas1p appears to absolve important functions in yeast as a part of the mechanisms that ensure the resistance of the neck region and the morphogenesis of the septum. The size and morphology of the neck region is severely affected both in the gas1Δ and gas1Δ chs3Δ mutant, suggesting an involvement of the protein in the maintenance of the integrity of the mother-bud neck region. The presence of Gas1p in the chitin ring could be part of the mechanism necessary to prevent new incorporation of glucan chains into the neck region or alternatively the protein could be required for a particular type of remodelling necessary for the septum region in preparation to cell division. Additionally, Gas1p could act as landmark protein for the choice of the site of bud emergencee. As to Gas1p localization at the plasma membrane, our study supports the validity of Gas1p-GFP as a marker to follow the dynamics of lipid raft. At the induction of sporulation, GAS1 mRNA levels steadily decrease and by 10h it is completely declined. Surprisingly, Gas1p levels are roughly constant during the entire sporulation processs and the protein is very stable, being detectable also at 43h after the induction of sporulation. During spore development, a translocation event occurs through which at the completion of meiosis II, Gas1p, synthesized during vegetative growth, is removed from the plasma membrane and internalized. Later, Gas1p is detected associated to the nascent prospore membrane surrounding the nuclear lobes and finally in mature spores it localizes at the spore periphery. This translocation event suggests that Gas1p delivery to the spore surface is not part of the developmentally reprogramming of the secretory pathway from the trans Golgi to the prospore membrane, whereas it involves at least in part the endocytic pathway. We demonstrated that END3-mediated endocytosis is one of the mechanisms required for the removal of the Gas1p from the plasma membrane and its efficient re-localization at the prospore membrane. Moreover in a sps1Δ mutant, Gas1p remains localized at the plasma membrane and fails to reach the spore surface. Sps1p is a member of the Ste20 protein kinase family and regulates the trafficking to the prospore membrane of enzymes involved in spore wall synthesis, such as the glucan synthase Fks2p and chitin synthase Chs3p. Thus Sps1p could regulate the traffic of Gas1p most likely in an indirect way by interacting and modifying the components of the intracellular trafficking machinery. Gas1p translocation during sporulation To test a possible involvement of Gas1p in spore wall formation, in this study we tried to characterize the sporulation phenotype of a gas1Δ mutant. Unfortunately our analysis was complicated by the mutant reduced cell viability when grown in presence of a poor carbon source such as acetate. gas1Δ sporulation defect could rely in a unsatisfied energetic request as the cell wall perturbations, typical of a gas1Δ mutant, enhance carbon and energy mobilization to efficiently combat cell wall weakening and the metabolism of acetate as the sole carbon source could be not sufficient to satisfy this energetic request. Moreover the addition of sorbitol to the sporulation medium only partially rescues gas1Δ defective phenotype during spore development. Even though sorbitol can mitigate the gas1Δ cell wall damages, it has no buffering effect on the gas1Δ energetic request, thus the mutant cells remained substantially unable to sporulate. Consequently, gas1Δ sporulation defective phenotype appears to be reminiscent of the mutant defects during vegetative growth, even worsened in a poor carbon source. Even though we cannot exclude a role for Gas1p during spore morphogenesis, it is our consumption that the protein translocation to the spore represents a “storage”mechanisms to ensure the presence of the Gas1p during spore germination. At 3h after the shift to a rich medium, Gas1p exhibits a highly polarized distribution, decorating exclusively half of the germinating spore in its growing pole. The protein localization is consistent with its role in glucan layer remodelling of the cell wall at the growing portion of the germinating cell. Besides gas1Δ germinating spore inability to support the elongation during the polarized growth of the cell suggests that Gas1p is required for a very early step in germination. Besides the protein is involved in a post-germination stage to support the polarized growth of the newly emerging bud. Finally, in this study we reported the preliminary results about the functional characterization of GAS3. The gene is expressed at a very low level during the vegetative growth in glucose and acetate. Consistently with the GAS3 expression pattern, Gas3p appears as a highly polydispersed glycoprotein of high molecular weight that is present in vegetative growing cells and along the sporulation process. EndoH treatment reduces the size and the aspect of the protein to a sharp band, suggesting that Gas3p is a heavily N-glycosylated protein. The experiments indicated that neither the overexpression nor the deletion of the GAS3 gene, alone or in combination with GAS2 and GAS4, lead to relevant differences in sporulation with respect toh the wild type or with the defective phenotype of the gas2 gas4 null mutant strain . The construction of a tagged version of the Gas3 protein to determine its localization will be a useful tool to understand the function ofl Gas3p during yeast life cycle.
GAS1, GAS2, GAS3 and GAS4 : four developmentally regulated genes with specialized roles at different stages of the yeast life cycle ; relatore: L. Popolo ; coordinatore: G. Zanetti. - Milano : Università degli studi di Milano. DIPARTIMENTO DI SCIENZE BIOMOLECOLARI E BIOTECNOLOGIE, 2009 Jan 08. ((21. ciclo, Anno Accademico 2007/2008.
|Titolo:||GAS1, GAS2, GAS3 and GAS4 : four developmentally regulated genes with specialized roles at different stages of the yeast life cycle|
|Supervisori e coordinatori interni:||ZANETTI, GIULIANA|
|Data di pubblicazione:||8-gen-2009|
|Parole Chiave:||cell wall ; leiviti ; Fungi ; GAS family|
|Settore Scientifico Disciplinare:||Settore BIO/11 - Biologia Molecolare|
Settore BIO/10 - Biochimica
|Citazione:||GAS1, GAS2, GAS3 and GAS4 : four developmentally regulated genes with specialized roles at different stages of the yeast life cycle ; relatore: L. Popolo ; coordinatore: G. Zanetti. - Milano : Università degli studi di Milano. DIPARTIMENTO DI SCIENZE BIOMOLECOLARI E BIOTECNOLOGIE, 2009 Jan 08. ((21. ciclo, Anno Accademico 2007/2008.|
|Appare nelle tipologie:||13 - Tesi di dottorato discussa entro ottobre 2010| |
One of the largest remaining wetland complexes in New Zealand, the lagoon and wetlands provide a vital refuge for rare birds and threatened plants.
One of the largest remaining wetland complexes in New Zealand, the Waituna Lagoon and Awarua Wetlands is hugely important for its biological diversity and cultural values.
The lagoon and the surrounding 20,000 hectares of wetlands area was one of the first in New Zealand to be officially recognised as a wetland of international importance. A 3500 hectare section of the wetlands, known as the Waituna Wetland Scientific Reserve, was listed as part of New Zealand’s obligations when signing the Ramsar Wetland Convention; an international convention that promotes the wise or sustainable use of wetlands. The site includes four major wetland types: coastal lagoons, freshwater swamps, extensive peatlands, and estuaries. Each ecosystem is unique and maintained by different ecological processes.
The wetlands provide a vital refuge for rare bird species, including the Southern New Zealand Dotterel (Tūturiwhatu), Marsh Crake (Koitareke), Fernbird (Mātātā) and Australasian Bittern (Matuku). The area is also visited frequently by many different trans-equatorial migrating and wading bird species, attracting rare visitors to New Zealand such as the Siberian Tattler, Greenshank and Sanderling. Most of the migratory waders are present only from October to late March, but some of the more common species are present through the winter as well. Many threatened plants and insects, as well as wildfowl, native fish and trout, also call the area home.
So bring your binoculars and spot rare birds, enjoy the easy walking tracks, explore the margins of the lagoon in a kayak or small boat, or just soak in the amazing and unique sights at this important natural site.
- Free Things to Do
- Outdoor Activities
- Natural Attraction
- Less than half day
- Wildlife Spotting
- Scenic Photo Point
- Scenic Attraction
- Walking & Tramping |
My company uses Tivoli for asset tracking - with DB2 as the repository. In my opinion, the Tivoli tables were not set up correctly as they have one primary key - computer_sys_id that links the tables together but, I believe there was a one-to-one assumption made throughout. In my situation, Tivoli does not identify when a NIC is disconnected - instead, it will list the same IP Address for all network cards in that one computer when two ip addresses are not found. All tables contain the computer_sys_id but neither the net_adapter nor the ip_addr tables have any key between them to where one can match the ip address to the specific adapter card. If the computer is using both primary and secondary ip addresses (two active nics), I am unable to identify which ip address is assigned to which network card.
net_adapter = computer_sys_id, mac, adapter_type, etc.
ip_addr = computer_sys_id, ip_address, dnsinfo, etc.
Currently, if I create a query using just the net_adapter and ip_addr tables, I will get up to 4 records for those that have two network cards listed. My work around for this is that I filter all Token Ring adapters from the net_adapter table (an assumption on my part that all comm w/Tivoli is via ethernet), combine the net_adapter and ip_addr tables and then run a distinct query against my results. This still produces less than perfect results but I can usually walk my way through why.
My question - to those that follow my explanation above: Could this be done in one query or is it best to run seperate queries (basing each on the previous) to gather my end results?
I need to provide this information to a web page.
computer table - computer_sys_id, machine type, model, serial number, location
net_adapter - computer_sys_id, mac
ip_addr - computer_sys_id, ip_address |
In the late 1970s, ill with Parkinson’s Disease, George R. Stewart worked valiantly to complete his last book. The book was a dictionary of the names given to Americans, and, like Names on the Land, it considered those name-givings in an historical context. The book was entitled American Given Names.
In the book’s “Introduction” Stewart describes several principles of American name-giving: Names are given soon after birth; those names are considered permanent; names usually are gender-specific; the names chosen by the namers are considered “good” names; there is a huge pool of names from which to choose; names may leave the pool by misuse, and new names may be added by use; although the names may have originally come from many different languages, they are Americanized in spelling and pronunciation. He follows that with a detailed “Historical Sketch,” nearly 40 pages long, which gives a good context for the types of names bestowed at different American eras, and some reasons for those choices.
The main section of the book is of course the dictionary of names. Note that these are American given names – not English or any other nations, although many nations and tongues provided the names originally – so these names would be given to children born here. Each name is defined; its origin and meaning given; and a brief history of its use included. Many of the names will seem dated now – the book is nearly 40 years old, and television and movies have had a profound impact on naming since then. But others are still common: Robert, Catherine, Donald, Mary, John, and so on. Since this is a work with an historical viewpoint, many of the names were not in common use even before publication, but Stewart included them as of historic interest. Of just because he found them interesting. How many people today are named Mahershalalhashbaz?
Stewart, good scholar that he was, leaves his readers with a quest – to track name changes of the late twentieth century, which seem like so much of that time to break with the past, to see if those new names endure, or if they’re replaced with other names.
The book is a good read, and a resource for scholars, writers, or anyone interested in American names.
The book was published by Oxford in 1978. Ted (Theodosia) Stewart told us that Stewart was working while he lay in bed, in pain. When someone commented that it must be hard to watch him do the work, Ted exclaimed, “No! No one can live with George unless he’s writing! Thank God he has this book to write!”
Stewart tried to write one more book, a biography of his father-in-law, University of Michigan President Marion LeRoy Burton. But to read his manuscript is to feel deep sorrow. He kept starting the book, over and over, but he could not get it beyond an early section. He died without having made much progress on it. On the other hand, he had written 28 published books, and a few never published; and even in the pain of his last illness, he wrote this fine book. |
“The Miguel Street”, third fictional work by Sir V S Naipaul (after The Mystic Masseur and The Suffrage of Elvira) was first published in 1959 and won the Somerset Maughm Award in 1961. The book is a collection of the prose pictures of various characters living on the Miguel Street in Port of Spain, Trinidad.
The story is told in first person as the experiences of a young, fatherless boy living in the street with his mother. As he says, Miguel Street would have appeared just like any other slum to a passer-by, but to those who had opportunity to observe its characters for many years, it presented a collection of humane characters, each unique in his/her own way.
Each story describes the life and eccentricities of a single character. The people that we meet on the Miguel Street with the author are:
- Bogart: the patient one, Popo: the carpenter,
- George: who lived in the pink house,
- Elias: the hard working boy who ended up as street scavenger,
- Man-man: the mad man,
- B. Wordsworth: the poet,
- Big Foot: the bully, Morgan: the pyrotechnicist,
- Titus Hoyt: the self-proclaimed educator,
- Laura: mother of eight children from seven different men,
- Eddoes: the junk king,
- Mrs Hereira: the love-sick runaway woman,
- Uncle Bhakcu: the mechanical genius,
- Bolo: the barber,
- Edward: who worked with Americans and
- Hat: the eternal voice of Miguel Street.
In addition to the main characters listed above, each story introduces us to side-characters from the families and friends of those. The book provides excellent portrait of a colonial neighborhood where the residents though not starving are poor, amoral about man-woman relationships and marriages, where the most common outlet for anger and frustration is beating up their wives, children and pets and drinking and the only way out is to study hard.
The book is written in the local dialect of Trinidad and is alive with the sparkling humor present throughout. It is to the author’s credit that though each of the character is eccentric, none of them appear to be caricatures here. The dose of humor is subtly balanced with the apparent reality of these people and the misery of their situation in life that lead to their eccentricities. We learn to appreciate these odd, comic and yet attractive and moving characters as the authors takes us to the Port of Spain of ‘40s and ‘50s.
Sir V S Naipaul admired R K Narayan’s work when he was young and this book reminded me of “Malgudi Days” in its set-up and the style of the narrative. But, the similarities end there. Though both Malgudi and Miguel Street are full of endearingly real characters, their nature and lifestyle are quite different. Malgudi characters do represent the variety of Indian society in terms of caste and creed, in essence they belong to the village where their families had been living for generations. But, the Miguel Street characters are unique and much different with their varying ancestry, color, race and ethnicity. They have no age-long history, except that of a generation or two of their ancestors, who came to the colonial plantation and kept moving from place to place. Fate and life has brought them to Miguel Street and the bond that keeps them together is their struggle for survival rather than the cultural one. |
Surge suppressor units are a kind of protective device used to ensure that electrical equipment is not damaged by a sudden voltage spike. This can be caused by a lightning strike or simply an electrical fault. Surge suppressors are often built into devices such as power strips, but they are also available as standalone units.
Surge suppressor units protect devices by blocking or diverting the excess voltage to the ground. They are triggered when the voltage exceeds a pre-determined threshold. They are often used as part of power distribution units and sometimes come with a warning light to indicate pre-failure.
Surge suppressor units can vary in a number of ways, including the mounting method they require, their maximum surge current, and the type of electrical equipment they are to be used with. For example: |
The European Parliament adopts three new reports on gender equality
The European Parliament adopted yesterday three reports on gender equality:
- The EU Strategy for Gender Equality: "Parliament welcomes the positive measures included in the EU’s new Gender Equality Strategy but calls for additional actions and specific and binding targets.
In their report adopted by 464 votes in favour, 119 against and 93 abstentions on Thursday, MEPs describe the Commission’s 2020-2025 Gender Equality Strategy as ambitious but regret that it is sometimes too vague and lacks defined targets to be reached by 2025 and clear monitoring tools."
- The gender perspective in the Covid-19 crisis and post-crisis period: MEPs examined the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on women and proposed measures to protect women's rights and enhance gender equality during and after the crisis. In a report adopted by 485 votes in favour, 86 against and 108 abstentions on Thursday, MEPs stress the need for a gender-sensitive response to all aspects of the COVID-19 crisis in order to enhance gender equality and to protect women’s rights during the pandemic and post-pandemic period.
- Closing the digital gender gap: women’s participation in the digital economy: "It is necessary to encourage women’s participation in technical and high-level jobs by overcoming educational barriers from an early stage, say MEPs. In a non-legislative report adopted on Thursday by 598 votes in favour, 45 against and 40 abstentions, MEPs call on the Commission to address the serious gender gap within the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) sector, via concrete measures and appropriate funding aimed at increasing the participation and digital inclusion of women and girls." |
Plan your adoption of In-Memory OLTP Features in SQL Server
This article describes the ways in which the adoption of In-Memory features affects other aspects of your business system.
A. Adoption of In-Memory OLTP features
The following subsections discuss factors you must consider when you plan to adopt and implement In-Memory features. A lot of explanatory information is available at:
One prerequisite for using the In-Memory features can involve the edition or service tier of the SQL product. For this and other prerequisites, see:
- Requirements for Using Memory-Optimized Tables
A.2 Forecast the amount of active memory
Does your system have enough active memory to support a new memory-optimized table?
Microsoft SQL Server
A memory-optimized table which contains 200 GB of data requires more than 200 GB of active memory be dedicated to its support. Before you implement a memory-optimized table containing a large amount of data, you must forecast the amount of additional active memory you might need to add to your server computer. For estimation guidance, see:
Azure SQL Database
For a database hosted in the Azure SQL Database cloud service, your chosen service tier affects the amount of active memory your database is allowed to consume. You should plan to monitor the memory usage of your database by using an alert. For details, see:
Memory-optimized table variables
A table variable which is declared to be memory-optimzed is sometimes a preferable to a traditional #TempTable that resides in the tempdb database. Such table variables can provide significant performance gains without using significant amounts of active memory.
A.3 Table must be offline to convert to memory-optimized
Some ALTER TABLE functionality is available for memory-optimized tables. But you cannot issue an ALTER TABLE statement to convert a disk-based table into a memory-optimized table. Instead you must use a more manual set of steps. What follows are various ways you can convert your disk-based table to be memory-optimized.
One way to convert your disk-based table to a memory-optimized table is to code the necessary Transact-SQL steps yourself.
Suspend application activity.
Take a full backup.
Rename your disk-based table.
Issue a CREATE TABLE statement to create your new memory-optimized table.
INSERT INTO your memory-optimized table with a sub-SELECT from the disk-based table.
DROP your disk-based table.
Take another full backup.
Resume application activity.
Memory Optimization Advisor
The Memory Optimization Advisor tool can generate a script to help implement the conversion of a disk-based table to a memory-optimized table. The tool is installed as part of SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT).
You can update your database in-place by using a .dacpac file, managed by SSDT. In SSDT you can specify changes to the schema that is encoded in the .dacpac file.
You work with .dacpac files in the context of a Visual Studio project of type Database.
- Data-tier Applications and .dacpac files
A.4 Guidance for whether In-Memory OLTP features are right for your application
For guidance on whether In-Memory OLTP features can improve the performance of your particular application, see:
B. Unsupported features
Features which are not supported in certain In-Memory OLTP scenarios are described at:
The following subsections highlight some of the more important unsupported features.
B.1 SNAPSHOT of a database
After the first time that any memory-optimized table or module is created in a given database, no SNAPSHOT of the database can ever be taken. The specific reason is that:
- The first memory-optimized item makes it impossible to ever drop the last file from the memory-optimized FILEGROUP; and
- No database that has a file in a memory-optimized FILEGROUP can support a SNAPSHOT.
Normally a SNAPSHOT can be handy for quick testing iterations.
B.2 Cross-database queries
Memory-optimized tables do not support cross-database transactions. You cannot access another database from the same transaction or the same query that also accesses a memory-optimized table.
Table variables are not transactional. Therefore, memory-optimized table variables can be used in cross-database queries.
B.3 READPAST table hint
No query can apply the READPAST table hint to any memory-optimized table.
The READPAST hint is helpful in scenarios where several sessions are each accessing and modifying the same small set of rows, such as in processing a queue.
B.4 RowVersion, Sequence
No column can be tagged for RowVersion on a memory-optimized table.
A SEQUENCE cannot be used with a constraint in a memory-optimized table. For example, you cannot create a DEFAULT constraint with a NEXT VALUE FOR clause. SEQUENCEs can be used with INSERT and UPDATE statements.
C. Administrative maintenance
This section describes differences in database administration where memory-optimized tables are used.
C.1 Identity seed reset, increment > 1
DBCC CHECKIDENT, to reseed an IDENTITY column, cannot be used on a memory-optimized table.
The increment value is restricted to exactly 1 for an IDENTITY column on a memory-optimized table.
C.2 DBCC CHECKDB cannot validate memory-optimized tables
The DBCC CHECKDB command does nothing when its target is a memory-optimized table. The following steps are a work-around:
Back up the files in the memory-optimized FILEGROUP to a null device. The backup process invokes a checksum validation.
If corruption is found, proceed with the next steps.
Copy data from your memory-optimized tables into disk-based tables, for temporary storage.
Restore the files of the memory-optimized FILEGROUP.
INSERT INTO the memory-optimized tables the data you temporarily stored in the disk-based tables.
DROP the disk-based tables which temporarily held the data.
This section describes situations where the excellent performance of memory-optimized tables can be held below full potential.
D.1 Index considerations
All indexes on a memory-optimized table are created and managed by the table-related statements CREATE TABLE and ALTER TABLE. You cannot target a memory-optimized table with a CREATE INDEX statement.
The traditional b-tree nonclustered index is often the sensible and simple choice when you first implement a memory-optimized table. Later, after you see how your application performs, you can consider swapping another index type.
Two special types of indexes need discussion in the context of a memory-optimized table: Hash indexes, and Columnstore indexes.
For an overview of indexes on memory-optimized tables, see:
Hash indexes can be the fastest format for accessing one specific row by its exact primary key value by using the '=' operator.
Inexact operators such as '!=', '>', or 'BETWEEN' would harm performance if used with a hash index.
A hash index might not be the best choice if the rate of key value duplication becomes too high.
Guard against underestimating how many buckets your hash index might need, to avoid long chains within individual buckets. For details, see:
Nonclustered columnstore indexes
Memory-optimized tables deliver high throughput of typical business transactional data, in the paradigm we call online transaction processing or OLTP. Columnstore indexes deliver high throughput of aggregations and similar processing we call Analytics. In years past the best approach available for satisfying the needs of both OLTP and Analytics was to have separate tables with heavy movement of data, and with some degree of data duplication. Today a simpler hybrid solution is available: have a columnstore index on a memory-optimized table.
A columnstore index can be built on a disk-based table, even as the clustered index. But on a memory-optimized table a columnstore index cannot be clustered.
LOB or off-row columns for a memory-optimized table prevent the creation of a columnstore index on the table.
No ALTER TABLE statement can be executed against a memory-optimized table while a columnstore index exists on the table.
- As of August 2016, Microsoft has near-term plans to improve the performance of re-creating the columnstore index.
D.2 LOB and off-row columns
Large objects (LOBs) are columns of such types as varchar(max). Having a couple of LOB columns on a memory-optimized table probably does not harm performance enough to matter. But do avoid having more LOB columns than your data needs. The same advice applies to off-row columns. Do not define a column as nvarchar(3072) if varchar(512) will suffice.
A bit more about LOB and off-row columns is available at:
E. Limitations of native procs
Particular elements of Transact-SQL are not supported in natively compiled T-SQL modules, including stored procedures. For details about which features are supported, see:
For considerations when migrating a Transact-SQL modules that uses unsupported features to natively compiled, see:
Besides limitations on certain elements of Transact-SQL, there are also limitation on query operators supported in natively compiled T-SQL modules. Because of these limitations, natively compiled stored procedures are not suitable for analytical queries that process large data sets.
No parallel processing in a native proc
Parallel processing cannot be a part of any query plan for a native proc. Native procs are always single-threaded.
Neither a hash join nor a merge join can be a part of any query plan for a native proc. Nested loop joins are used.
No hash aggregation
When the query plan for a native proc requires an aggregation phase, only stream aggregation is available. Hash aggregation is not supported in a query plan for a native proc.
- Hash aggregation is better when data from a large number of rows must aggregated.
F. Application design: Transactions and retry logic
A transaction involving a memory-optimized table can become dependent on another transaction which involves the same table. If the count of dependent transactions reaches exceeds the allowed maximum, all the dependent transactions fail.
In SQL Server 2016:
- The allowed maximum is 8 dependent transactions. 8 is also the limit of transactions that any given transaction can be dependent on.
- The error number is 41839. (In SQL Server 2014 the error number is 41301.)
You can make your Transact-SQL scripts more robust against a possible transaction error by adding retry logic to your scripts. Retry logic is more likely to help when UPDATE and DELETE calls are frequent, or if the memory-optimized table is referenced by a foreign key in another table. For details, see:
- Transactions with Memory-Optimized Tables
- Transaction dependency limits with memory optimized tables - Error 41839 |
The European Week for Waste Reduction is an initiative aiming to promote the implementation of awareness-raising actions about sustainable resource and waste management during a single week. It encourages a wide range of audiences (public authorities, private companies, civil society as well as citizens themselves) to get involved.
What are the EWWR’s objectives?
- to raise awareness about waste reduction, product reuse and material recycling strategies, and related European Union and Member States policies,
- to highlight the work accomplished by EWWR participants,
- to mobilise and encourage European citizens to concentrate on four key action themes,
- to reinforce EWWR stakeholders’ capacities by providing them with targeted communication tools and training,
- to assess the impact of communication actions on concrete behaviour change regarding consumption and waste management patterns.
What are the EWWR’s main features?
- Coordination of awareness-raising actions during one week of the year
- Development of target-group-specific communication tools for schools, businesses, administrations/associations and citizens
- Development and promotion of Prevention Thematic Days focusing on one specific waste prevention topic per year
- Development and testing of the concept of a European Clean-Up Day: “Let’s Clean Up Europe”
The actions implemented in the EWWR are addressing the “3Rs”: Reduce waste, Reuse products, Recycle material. The “3Rs” represent the options which should be considered first when elaborating a waste management strategy.
Following the hierarchy illustrated above, reducing waste should always be the first priority. Reduce means using fewer resources in the first place and includes strict avoidance as well as reduction at source. The second-best option is to reuse products. This includes also preparation for reuse. Third priority and the last waste management option that is included in the EWWR is materials recycling. |
CEID - Instructional Terms
Glossary of Instructional Design Terminlogy
ACTIVE LEARNING: Any approach that engages learners by matching instruction to the learner's interests, understanding, and developmental level. Often includes hands-on and authentic activities.
ASYNCHRONOUS LEARNING: When learners participate in an online learning course at different times, it is known as asynchronous learning. This might also be called eLearning or web-based training (WBT). Asynchronous learning allows learners to go through a course at their own pace and on their own schedule.
BLENDED LEARNING: Also referred to as hybrid learning. Learning and instructional techniques that integrate e-learning such as podcasts and online discussion with traditional (in-class) techniques such as lectures and tutorials.
BLOOM'S TAXONOMY: A classification of behavior and learning developed by Benjamin Bloom and others. Organized into three domains of learning: cognitive (or intellectual), affective (or emotional/attitudinal), and psychomotor (or physical, motor).
COGNITIVE STRATEGIES: Learning that is domain-specific or executive, as in Meta cognitive, describes cognitive strategies.
DISTANCE LEARNING and DISTANCE EDUCATION: Education that occurs when students and instructors not in the same location. There is often a geographic and time seperation.
GAGNE's NINE EVENTS OF INSTRUCTION: A method for organizing instructional strategies within the lesson designed by Professor of Instructional Design, R.M. Gagne. The Nine Events of Instruction include: Gain Attention, Inform Learners of the Objectives, Stimulate Recall of Prior Learning, Present the Stimulus (Content), Provide Learner Guidance, Elicit Performance, Provide Feedback, Assess Performance, Enhance Retention and Transfer (Closure).
HYBRID LEARNING: See blended learning.
INFORMAL LEARNING: Informal learning occurs when people have a need to know something. They set their own learning objectives and acquire knowledge, skills and information in their own ways. This could be through asking questions, observing experts, practicing and conversing. It’s the kind of natural learning humans do outside of a structured environment.
INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN: Instructional design involves the identification of the knowledge, information, and skill gaps of a particular group of people and creating or selecting learning experiences that close this gap. Instructional designers base their learning decisions on cognitive psychology, instructional theory and best practices.
INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGNER: An instructional designer practices the craft and science of instructional design. This person identifies the needs of a targeted audience and determines the best approaches for meeting the audience’s needs. It could involve designing and writing online learning courses as well as writing the manuals needed for Instructor-Led Training. Some instructional designers also create graphics and use authoring systems to produce online courses.
INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES: Means by which the content and skills are transferred from the training delivery system to the learner. Examples include: demonstrations, role plays, hands-on activities, practice, simulations, discussion, lecture, illustrated diagrams, step-by-step review; self-study exercises, reviews, on-the-job training, practice with coaching, video demonstrations, examples, etc. Often organized by these categories: pre-instructional activities, content presentations, learner practice, feedback, and closure.
INTERACTIVE MULTIMEDIA: Interactive multimedia allows learners to provide input to an online course and receive feedback as a result of the input. The input might consist of a mouse click or drag, gestures, voice commands, touching an input screen, text entry and live interactions with connected participants.
MOBILE LEARNING: Learning that takes place on a hand-held device, such as a mobile phone, that can take place anytime and anywhere.
MODULE: Instructional package with a single integrated theme that provides the information needed to develop mastery of specified knowledge and skills, and serves as one component of a total course or curriculum.
MULTIMEDIA: Multimedia refers to the presentation of information and instruction through a combination of graphics, audio, text, or video. Multimedia instruction is often interactive.
OBJECTIVES (Learning): The desired outcomes for the training event (what the training should accomplish in terms of performance the learners should exhibit in the learning environment in order to be considered competent); consist of three components (the performance, criterion and standard); are congruent with the tasks and testing strategies. (Objectives can also be established for on-the-job performance, business or impact performance, or ROI).
ONLINE LEARNING: The term online learning is often used synonymously with eLearning. It is an umbrella term that includes any type of learning accomplished on a computer and usually over the Internet.
PEDAGOGY: The method and practice of teaching, especially as an academic subject or theoretical concept
SELF-PACED LEARNING: Self-paced learning refers to the type of instruction that allows a person to control the flow of the courseware. It implies the learning environment is asynchronous.
SOCIAL MEDIA LEARNING: Social media learning refers to the acquisition of information and skills through social technologies that allow people to collaborate, converse, provide input, create content and share it. Examples of social media learning can occur through online social networking platforms, blogs and microblogs (like Twitter), online talk radio and wikis.
STREAMING MEDIA: Streaming media refers to video and audio that is downloaded to a computer from the Internet as a continuous stream of data and is played as it reaches the destination computer.
SYNCHRONOUS LEARNING: When learners participate in an online learning course at the same time but in different locations, it is known as synchronous learning. Synchronous learning allows learners to interact with the instructor and other participants. This is done through software that creates a virtual classroom.
VIRTUAL CLASSROOM: The virtual classroom refers to a digital classroom learning environment that takes place over the Internet rather than in a physical classroom. It is implemented through software that allows an instructor and students to interact. |
The goals of effective sex offender management efforts are to reduce recidivism and promote positive outcomes for victims and offenders. Psychosexual or sex offender—specific evaluations; Psychiatric assessments; and Physiological assessments of deviant arousal, interests, and preferences. Referred to as victimcenteredness, adherence to this principle ensures that sex offender management strategies do not overlook the needs of victims, re—traumatize or otherwise negatively impact victims, or inadvertently jeopardize the safety of victims or other community members. As such, strategies to address these issues must include the key agencies, organizations, entities, and individuals who have a stake and role in adult and juvenile sex offender management. Therefore, the key stakeholders who represent the core components of the Comprehensive Approach must take active steps to dispel myths about sex offenders and educate the public about the nature of sexual victimization, who is most likely to be targeted and by whom, and how effective management strategies can increase community safety and prevent further victimization. In the late s, a study showed that Indiana sex offenders have recidivism of about 1.
Section 35, chapter , Oregon Laws , provides: If you believe that a crime is being committed by a sex offender, contact your local law enforcement agency immediately as you would do in any case of suspected criminal activity. However, they must notify DCJS of their new address no later than 10 days after the move. Using specialized and empirically—supported tools to identify risk levels and dynamic risk factors, and through collaboration and sharing of critical information, stakeholders are able to make assessment—driven decisions at specific points in time and on an ongoing basis that will enhance sex offender management efforts. Like the Australian and British registers, the New Zealand sex offenders register will not be accessible to the general public but only to officials with security clearance. However, if the offender is under parole or probation supervision, other New York State laws may limit the offender from living within 1, feet of a school or other facility caring for children. Moving beyond more traditional and sometimes fragmented and inconsistent responses, it connects each of the essential components of a multi—disciplinary, collaborative, and systemic model. Some states have Civic Confinement laws, which allow very-high-risk sex offenders to be placed in secure facilities, "in many ways like prisons", where they are supposed to be offered treatment and regularly reevaluated for possible release. Unlike physical castration, it is reversible by stopping the medication. The state of Washington is among those that have special provisions in their registration code covering homeless offenders, but not all states have such provisions. If and when an offender is released from incarceration, they must confirm their registration status within five business days. And for both registration and community notification, it is particularly important to consider how these laws are applied to juveniles, given what is known about the differences between adult and juvenile sex offenders, the low recidivism rates of these youth, and the potential for collateral consequences see, e. Children may not be able to process the graphic nature of some offenses. Referred to as victimcenteredness, adherence to this principle ensures that sex offender management strategies do not overlook the needs of victims, re—traumatize or otherwise negatively impact victims, or inadvertently jeopardize the safety of victims or other community members. The study also showed that blocks in Washington DC where sex offenders lived did not have higher molestation rates than blocks where sex offenders did not live. Supervision officers and mental health professionals require specialized knowledge to conduct appropriate and comprehensive assessments of offenders and to ensure that the strategies and interventions utilized will maximize the likelihood of reducing recidivism and ensuring safe communities. Finally, when presiding over these challenging cases, judges can benefit from understanding the contemporary literature that has specific relevance to their day—today decisionmaking see, e. Among child molesters released from prison in , 60 percent had been in prison for molesting a child 13 years old or younger. Risk assessment tools consider factors that have been empirically linked by research to sexual recidivism risk. Level of risk for sexual and non—sexual recidivism; Recommended types and intensity of interventions that will be most beneficial, including level of care e. A November Maryland Court of Appeals ruling exempts homeless persons from that state's registration requirements, which has prompted a drive to compose new laws covering this contingency. Indiana, Illinois, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Montana all have publicly accessible registries for those convicted of murder. Without a doubt, sex offender management has emerged as a highly specialized area within the criminal and juvenile justice fields. Within three years of release, 2. Notwithstanding any other provision of law:
Video about sex offender risk assessment tools:
Better Risk Assessments, Management, Tools and Metrics by Tony Ridley
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What is a pantoum poem example?
A good example of the pantoum is Carolyn Kizer’s “Parent’s Pantoum,” the first three stanzas of which are excerpted here: Where did these enormous children come from, More ladylike than we have ever been? Some of ours look older than we feel.
How do you write a good pantoum?
The pantoum is a poem of four-line stanzas.
How a pantoum works
- The first line of the new stanza is a repeat of the second line in the previous stanza.
- The third line of the new stanza is a repeat of the fourth line in the previous stanza.
- The second and fourth lines of the new stanza are new lines, not seen before.
What is the rhyme scheme for a pantoum poem?
The pantoum consists of a series of quatrains rhyming abab in which the second and fourth lines of a quatrain recur as the first and third lines in the succeeding quatrain; each quatrain introduces a new second rhyme (as bcbc, cdcd).
How many lines is a pantoum?
The contemporary Western version of the pantoum is a poem made up of stanzas whose four lines repeat in a pattern: lines 2 and 4 of each stanza are repeated, whole, as lines 1 and 3 of the next stanza, and so on. The poem can be of any length.
What is repeated in a pantoum poem?
The pantoum is a form of poetry similar to a villanelle in that there are repeating lines throughout the poem. It is composed of a series of quatrains; the second and fourth lines of each stanza are repeated as the first and third lines of the next stanza.
What are the characteristics of a pantoum?
A Malaysian verse form adapted by French poets and occasionally imitated in English. It comprises a series of quatrains, with the second and fourth lines of each quatrain repeated as the first and third lines of the next.
Should a pantoum rhyme?
Traditionally, pantoums consisted of two or three stanzas. Additionally, alternating lines in each stanza had to rhyme. Modern pantoums have no limit in terms of length, and many do not rhyme at all. The defining feature of the pantoum form, both traditional and modern, is the four line stanzas.
How do you write a Triolet?
Rules of the Triolet Form
The requirements of this fixed form are straightforward: the first line is repeated in the fourth and seventh lines; the second line is repeated in the final line; and only the first two end-words are used to complete the tight rhyme scheme.
What is a free verse poem?
Nonmetrical, nonrhyming lines that closely follow the natural rhythms of speech. A regular pattern of sound or rhythm may emerge in free-verse lines, but the poet does not adhere to a metrical plan in their composition.
Who invented the pantoum?
This Form Is Characterized by Interlocking Stanzas
Brought to the West by Victor Hugo in the 19th century, the pantoum, or pantun, is derived from a much older Malaysian form of a folk poem, usually made up of rhyming couplets.
How long should a pantoum be?
Why do poets use pantoum?
It creates a very clear path for how the poem moves and comes full circle as lines “a” and “c” become lines “d” and “b” respectively in the final stanza. In other words, the poem ends with the same line it started with. It comes full circle.
What is 10 line poem called?
Terza Rima A type of poetry consisting of 10 or 11 syllable lines arranged in three-line tercets.
What is a 9 line poem called?
A nonet is a nine-line poem. In the nonet form, each line contains specific, descending syllable counts. The first line contains nine syllables, the second line contains eight, the third line contains seven, and so on.
How do you begin a poem?
The opening line of a poem should grab the reader’s attention, invoke the thematic intentions of the poem, and give an insight into the poet’s writing style.
How do I start to write a poem?
How to write a poem
- 1 Decide what you want to write about. Unless you’ve been assigned to write a poem about a specific topic, the first step in writing a poem is determining a topic to write about.
- 2 Determine the best format for your topic.
- 3 Explore words, rhymes, and rhythm.
- 4 Write the poem.
- 5 Edit what you’ve written.
What does the word pantoum mean?
Definition of pantoum
: a series of quatrains rhyming abab in which the second rhyme of a quatrain recurs as the first in the succeeding quatrain, each quatrain introduces a new second rhyme (as bcbc, cdcd), and the initial rhyme of the series recurs as the second rhyme of the closing quatrain (xaxa)
What is a poem with repeating lines called?
The term anaphora refers to a poetic technique in which successive phrases or lines begin with the same words, often resembling a litany. The repetition can be as simple as a single word or as long as an entire phrase.
What is a 5 line poem?
A quintain (also known as a quintet) is any poetic form or stanza that contains five lines. Quintain poems can contain any line length or meter.
What is a 2 line poem called?
A couplet usually consists of two successive lines that rhyme and have the same metre. A couplet may be formal (closed) or run-on (open). In a formal (or closed) couplet, each of the two lines is end-stopped, implying that there is a grammatical pause at the end of a line of verse.
What is a 1 line poem called?
A poem or stanza with one line is called a monostich, one with two lines is a couplet; with three, tercet or triplet; four, quatrain.
What is a 40 line poem called?
Glose (or Glosa). 40-line poem based off an epigraph.
What are good topics for a poem?
Poetry ideas – Write a poem about:
- A particular color.
- Being underwater.
- A person whose life you’re curious about.
- Your mother’s perfume.
- Falling asleep or waking up.
- Growing older.
- The feeling of getting lost in a book.
What are the 3 types of poems?
There are many types of poetry. These can be grouped into 3 main genres: narrative poetry, dramatic poetry, and lyric poetry.
What are the 5 examples of repetition?
Here are some familiar examples of repetition:
- Time after time.
- Heart to heart.
- Boys will be boys.
- Hand in hand.
- Get ready; get set; go.
- Hour to hour.
- Sorry, not sorry.
- Over and over. |
Sometime in the 2030s, the not-too-distant future, NASA hopes to send the first manned mission to Mars. That means the space agency has about two decades to solve the many, many problems with a hypothetical mission.
Back in 2013, Wired listed the challenges we’ll have to overcome to bring people to the Red Planet:
“… we can’t properly store the necessary fuel long enough for a Mars trip, we don’t yet have a vehicle capable of landing people on the Martian surface, and we aren’t entirely sure what it will take to keep them alive once there.”
So in looking for solutions, NASA is casting a wide net—including reaching out to citizen scientists. To that end, the agency invited the public to participate in a challenge to help solve one problem: how to protect astronauts in deep space.
In November of last year, NASA and crowdsourcing company Innocentive announced the challenge and the promise of a cash prize. The agency laid out the problem:
“Galactic Cosmic Rays (GCR) permeate the universe and exposure to them is inevitable during space exploration… long duration exposure to GCR will exceed allowable career radiation exposure limits during any meaningful deep space mission.”
And the necessary solution:
“Protection is needed to allow for safe and successful long duration human missions such as going to Mars. NASA is seeking to identify key solutions that will protect astronauts from GCR, specifically a way to reduce exposure.”
Contestants had just over a month to submit ideas for consideration, and $5,000 in prize money was at stake.
In April, the winner was announced: Experimental nuclear physicist Dr. George Hitt, an assistant professor of Physics and Nuclear Engineering at Khalifa University in the United Arab Emirates. In an email to Fusion, Hitt described his $5,000 idea as a play on traditional methods of shielding astronauts from the harmful rays.
According to Hitt, “The best known method of [radiation] protection is to surround travellers with several meters of material that slows or absorbs the radiation.” In essence, Hitt wants to protect space travelers from radiation by building an interplanetary transit system:
“The shield and its orbit function like a city bus. At regular intervals, it will come close enough to Earth for a spacecraft to fly up to it and hitch a ride inside of it. After riding to Mars orbit, it would detach and leave the shield material behind, to return back to Earth. When the travellers want to return to Earth, they would again wait for the right time, rendezvous with the shield and ride inside of it back to Earth's orbit.”
Hitt says it didn’t take him very long to come up with the solution. “Actually, the idea for separating shield and ship came to me while playing LEGOS with my children one Saturday afternoon. I wrote and submitted the solution by the same evening!”
Not too shabby for an after-playtime activity. Still the winning ideas didn’t solve the ultimate problem—but they do bring us closer to finding a solution. Said NASA in a statement.
“While the five winners selected in the first challenge did not identify a solution that ultimately solves the problem of GCR risk to human crews, the first place idea did provide a novel approach to using and configuring known methods of protection to save substantial launch mass and lower launch costs over multiple missions.”
NASA’s Kerry Lee, the challenge’s technical lead, confirmed the sentiment in an email to Fusion: “We didn’t receive any breakthrough solutions that brought us to an 'ah ha' moment.” Of 136 submissions, he added, the ideas ranged "from absolutely silly and some absurd with no physical possibility of working all the way to well thought out concepts of operation in dealing with the radiation problem.”
Markus Novak, who tied for fourth place and walked away from the challenge with $1,000, based his solution on basic science. Novak, an Electrical Engineering PhD student at the Ohio State University, told Fusion in an email that “cosmic radiation wasn't something I had ever given much thought to before. But it ultimately boiled down to high school physics.”
Novak proposed a safe space for astronauts to travel through: “In a nutshell, I had found some previous NASA research that used magnets to deflect the rays—but the thing is, cosmic rays are coming in with absurd amounts of energy… so it takes quite a lot of power to turn these things back. So instead, I developed a lens, which would alter the trajectory just enough to miss the spacecraft.”
Now, the challenge doors are again open, and the stakes are higher. “The follow-on challenge offers an award of up to $30,000 for design ideas to protect the crew on long-duration space missions,” said NASA. The agency is accepting applications through June 29.
Danielle Wiener-Bronner is a news reporter. |
Hirschi, J. and Lynch-Stieglitz, J.
Ocean margin densities and paleoestimates of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation: a model study
Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems, 7, . (doi:10.1029/2006GC001301).
Full text not available from this repository.
An eddy-permitting numerical ocean model is used to test to what extent the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (MOC) can be reconstructed from sea water densities at the ocean margins. By gradually reducing the number of locations where the densities are known and by adding systematic and random errors comparable to those expected in paleoreconstructions of sea water densities, we test if a reliable picture of the MOC can still be obtained. Our results show that even with only 0.07% of the boundary densities the mean state of the MOC as well as its variability can be reconstructed. The addition of a systematic error results in an overestimation or underestimation of the meridional transport. With a random error similar to the one expected for paleoestimates of the density the mean state of the MOC can still be reproduced, especially north of 40°N. However, the random noise largely masks the relatively modest MOC variability observed in the model run. For both systematic and random noise in the density field there is a larger sensitivity for MOC reconstructions the closer a location is from the equator. For a measuring campaign that aims to infer past states of the Atlantic MOC on the basis of boundary densities, the present study suggests that the best strategy is to collect data that allow estimation of the basin-wide vertical density structure between 40°N and 50°N. Information from only a few latitudes is sufficient for a reasonable representation of the mean MOC state.
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PPS 6: Planning, Archaeology and The Built Heritage
Annex C: Grading of Listed Buildings
C9 Buildings listed by the Department are divided into three grades; A, B+ and B to give an indication of their relative importance. The gradings are not statutory but they are used by the Department as a management tool to help in administering levels of grant to owners of listed buildings. The categories contained within the list can be briefly defined as follows:
Grade A : buildings of greatest importance to Northern Ireland including both outstanding architectural set-pieces and the least altered examples of each representative style, period and grouping. There are 193 buildings in this category (June 1997).
Grade B+ : buildings which might have merited grade A status but for detracting features such as an incomplete design, lower quality additions or alterations. Also included are buildings that because of exceptional features, interiors or environmental qualities are clearly above the general standard set by grade B buildings. A building may merit listing as grade B+ where its historic importance is greater than a similar building listed as grade B. There are 388 buildings listed in this category (June 1997).
Grade B : buildings of local importance and good examples of a particular period or style. A degree of alteration or imperfection of design may be acceptable. There are 7,439 buildings in this category (June 1997). Since 1987 the Department has been banding Grade B buildings into two groups namely B1 and B2.
C10 Generally B1 is chosen for buildings that qualify for listing by virtue of a relatively wide selection of attributes. Usually these will include interior features or where one or more features are of exceptional quality and/or interest. B2 is chosen for buildings that qualify for listing by virtue of only a few attributes. An example would be a building sited within a conservation area where the quality of its architectural appearance raises it appreciably above the general standard of buildings within the conservation area. |
Adverb(1) in distinction from others
(1) more specifically :: আরো নির্দিষ্টভাবে
English to Bengali Dictionary: specifically
Meaning and definitions of specifically, translation in Bengali language for specifically with similar and opposite words. Also find spoken pronunciation of specifically in Bengali and in English language.
Tags for the entry "specifically"
What specifically means in Bengali, specifically meaning in Bengali, specifically definition, examples and pronunciation of specifically in Bengali language. |
It depends almost entirely on how much data is being displayed in the document. Geospatial datasets can vary over several orders of magnitude ranging from bytes to terabytes, and so too do GeoPDF and all PDF documents. Here are some general rules:
- If no feature attributes are placed in the GeoPDF document, the PDF representation (e.g., the PDF file) is generally smaller than the data used to create it.
- If all the feature attributes are included in the PDF file, it’s often larger, sometimes substantially so, than the data used to create it, although using GeoPackage feature attributes with TerraGo Publisher for ArcGIS can mitigate this substantially.
- One case where GeoPDF documents are almost always larger than their non-TerraGo analogs is when the TerraGo Publisher for ArcGIS capability to include layers with scale-dependent visibility is used. In this case, Publisher will add layers that wouldn’t be added otherwise, meaning that more information was packed into the resultant document at the cost of the space to store it. |
One-shoulder exposed top
Fabric name: High elastic satin
Main fabric composition: polyester fiber (polyester)
The content of the main fabric composition: 81%-90%
Lining composition: polyester fiber (polyester)
1. Asian sizes are 1 to 2 sizes smaller than European and American people. Choose the larger size if your size between two sizes. Please allow 2-3cm differences due to manual measurement.
2. Please check the size chart carefully before you buy the item, if you don’t know how to choose size, please contact our customer service.
3.As you know, the different computers display colors differently, the color of the actual item may vary slightly from the following images. |
One of the most basic steps you can take in a full body cleansing and detoxification program is a colon cleansing. You'll notice that nearly every natural detox program focuses on bowel regularity. There's a reason for this: Your gut receives all manner of body toxins as they're cleaned from the blood in the liver, then dumped into the gut through the bile. Any measures you can take to help remove toxins from your intestines lessens the risk that they'll be reabsorbed before they've had a chance to be eliminated.
A thorough digestive cleansing also requires a little maintenance afterward so you can keep up the benefits. Even so, an effective program is remarkably simple.
- Add more fiber (of course). No matter how healthy your gut is, if it doesn't have something to push against, you're headed for bowel irregularity. Don't bother counting fiber grams; just add more fruits and vegetables to your diet, and replace any "white" foods (bread, pasta, etc.) with whole-grain versions.
- Try a natural laxative. If you find that adding fiber isn't enough to produce the bowel changes you want, then add a laxative to your regimen for up to two weeks. Avoid the chemical-based products (which tend to be hard on your digestive tract) and look for ones that contain herbs such as senna or cascara sagrada.
- Heal your gut with glutamine. The amino acid glutamine is a basic food for the cells that line your gut wall. Glutamine is found in most high-protein foods such as meat and beans, but for focused gut healing take an additional 5 grams a day.
- Take a daily probiotic. Benefits of probiotic supplementation come from normalizing the bacterial balance in your gut. Healthy gut flora promote a healthy gut wall, which means that you're not reabsorbing all the environmental toxins that have just been cleaned by the liver.
Those are the basics. You should begin to see the benefits of a colon cleanse almost immediately, as you just feel lighter and more refreshed. The benefits will continue long after, as other organs have their loads lightened (because they're not trying to get rid of everything that wasn't leaving through your colon.)
- Your skin will be clearer.
- You'll breathe more easily.
- You'll think more clearly.
All in all, a regular colon cleansing is well worth the effort. |
- What types of jobs can people who are blind or have low vision do? | National Technical Assistance Center (msstate.edu) - A guide to show there are no limits to the type of jobs a blind person can do.
- Why hire workers who are blind or have low vision? | National Technical Assistance Center (msstate.edu) - Why it makes sense for your business to hire someone who is blind or low vision.
- Blindness and Low Vision basic information
- Legal requirements for hiring someone who is Blind - A more simplified breakdown of the ADA laws covering hiring, recruitment, and training of an employee with a disability.
- Accommodating visual impairments during the employee selection process
- Training for Businesses - Association of People Supporting Employment First (apse.org)
- Disability Employment (opm.gov) - Employment Opportunities in the Federal Government.
Reasonable Accommodation Process
- Reasonable Accommodations in the Workplace
- How can we accommodate visual impairments in the workplace? | National Technical Assistance Center (msstate.edu)
- Accommodation Search (askjan.org) - Searchable Online Accommodation Resource.
- Blindness and Low vision basic information
- How can I help an employee who is experiencing Blindness?
- Mississippi State University - HR Guide for working with employees who are experiencing vision loss
- Understanding How Blind Workers Perform Job-Related Tasks | National Technical Assistance Center (msstate.edu)
- FAQ: Inquiring Minds Video Series | National Technical Assistance Center (msstate.edu) |
Africa; HSHM; ethnobotany; oral history; gender; Indian Ocean slave trade networks; traditional medicine and healing systems in Madagascar and Tanzania
Breeanna is a fourth-year doctoral student in the History of Science and Medicine Program. She specializes in African history and studies transformations in healing cultures born from migrations and environmental change. Her broad focus is on the history of East Africa and the Western Indian Ocean, specifically that of Madagascar and Tanzania. Her doctoral research emphasizes the role of ancestral spirits in histories of regional pharmacopeia and bioprospecting by recognizing them as active and independent political agents in the cross-cultural negotiations of health, healing, and illness in the Western Indian Ocean. Her methodologies include ethnography, archival research, oral history, and ethnobotany, and she works across the disciplines of anthropology, history, and science and technology studies. Her primary research languages are French, Malagasy, and Swahili.
Prior to Yale, Breeanna received her A.B. in History and African and African American Studies from Harvard College. She wrote her undergraduate thesis on the legal precarity of enslaved women’s lives during the 19th and 20th century British-led abolition along the Swahili Coast.
She is passionate about education and also earned her teacher licensure from the Harvard Graduate School of Education in 2015. She currently works as a Writing Fellow at the Graduate Writing Lab and a McDougal Teaching Fellow at the Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning.
Since arriving at Yale, her research and language studies have been generously funded by the Yale Center for the Study of Race, Indigeneity, and Transnational Migration, the MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies, the Critical Language Scholarship Program, and the Social Science Research Council. |
(THIS ARTICLE IS COURTESY OF TRIP TRIVIA)
4 Largest Religious Monuments in the World
There might be one thing that most religions can all agree on: bigger is better.
Practitioners of all faiths have aimed to express the extent of their devoutness through the size of their temples and statues. Competition among the faithful has led to the creation of bigger and bigger monuments all over the world. Just take one look at the massive cathedrals of Europe, mosques in the Middle East, giant Buddha statues throughout Asia, or even modern megachurches across the Bible Belt, and you’ll see plenty of examples of grandiose religious architecture on display.
Case in point, here are four of the largest religious monuments in the world.
1. Karnak Temple Complex – Luxor, Egypt
One of the biggest religious monuments is also one of the oldest. The Karnak Temple Complex was constructed by the ancient Egyptians over the course of several centuries, beginning during the Middle Kingdom. Parts of the temple were used continuously for more than 2,000 years to worship a panoply of Egyptian deities.
The complex covers more than 200 acres and includes several temples and monumental halls. One of the most well-known sections is Hypostyle Hall, which is supported by 134 columns, each 72 feet tall. The hall was the setting for an iconic movie scene from “The Spy Who Love Me”, in which James Bond is chased by the vicious henchman Jaws.
2. Borobudur – Central Java, Indonesia
Located on the island of Magelang in Central Java, Indonesia, Borobudur lays claim to being the largest Buddhist temple ever constructed. It was built during the 8th and 9th centuries by rulers of the Syailendra dynasty. The dynasty ruled Java up until the end of the 10th century.
The temple, which is built around a natural hill, covers a total surface area of more than 26,000 square feet. At its center is a large stupa, a domed Buddhist shrine intended for meditation. Surrounding the main stupa are three circular platforms containing 72 smaller stupas, each with a Buddha statue inside. The base is made up of five square platforms, with the main foundation being 387 feet on each side. Symbolic carvings cover the walls and depict religious imagery, including the spread of Buddhism to the Indonesian archipelago.
Following the decline of the Syailendra dynasty, Borobudur was abandoned for centuries and overtaken by the jungle. The monument was rediscovered during a brief period of British occupation at the start of the 19th century. Thomas Stamford Raffles, the appointed governor-general of Java, heard tales of a massive temple hidden deep in the jungle. In 1814, a Dutch engineer sent by Raffles found Borobudur buried beneath vines and dirt.
The first restoration of the site did not start until 1907, after decades of continued decay and looting. UNESCO started a modern restoration of the temple in the 1970s and named Borobudur a World Heritage Site in 1991. Today the temple is a major tourist attraction, bringing in millions of visitors each year.
3. Spring Temple Buddha – Lushan County, Henan, China
At a height of 420 feet, the Spring Temple Buddha in China’s Henan Province is the largest religious statue in the world. Including its base, which serves as a Buddhist temple, the entire structure reaches a height of 682 feet—more than twice the height of the Statue of Liberty.
The statue opened to the public in 2008. Including the supporting structures, it took 11 years to build and cost around $178 million USD, according to Zhou Mingqi, an analyst with tourism consulting firm Jingjiang Consulting. It took 238 pounds of gold to plate the copper statue. Ironically the statue is located in one of China’s poorest counties.
4. Angkor Wat – Siem Reap, Cambodia
Built by the Khmer Empire in the 12th century, the Angkor Wat temple complex in Cambodia is widely recognized as the largest religious building in the world. Spanning more than 402 acres, it was originally built as a Hindu temple in honor of the god Vishnu. It was designed to represent Mount Meru, the Hindu equivalent of Mount Olympus. Construction was a monumental undertaking. According to inscriptions, a workforce of 300,000 people and 6,000 elephants toiled to build the temple complex.
By the end of the 12th century, the temple converted to use as a Buddhist temple, as that religion became a stronger force in the region. Unlike Borobudur, Angkor Wat was never completely abandoned and remains an important site of worship for Buddhists to this day. It is also a major tourist destination, drawing more than 2 million people each year. |
You may be approaching an important birthday (often a number ending in “0”). It is important that you turn off the stove when you leave the house. Elvis had an important influence on the development of Rock & Roll. The Random House Dictionary offers eight different meanings of the word, but what do we mean, exactly, by important furniture?
Objects and furniture can be considered and described as “important” if they were owned by an important, widely known, historical figure, such as George Washington. Occasionally, we are fortunate enough to handle objects of this nature but that is not the sense in which we most often apply this adjective. Furniture can be judged “important” by objective standards without having been owned or used by famous people.
Albert Sack, scion of the most consequential (or important) dealers of American antique furniture, Israel Sack, Inc., introduced Americans in his 1950 book, Fine Points of Furniture (New York: Crown Publishers, 1950), to the concept of educating one’s eye by comparing the stature and detail of one form to other examples of the same form by illustrating and identifying “good” “better” and “best” examples side-by-side.
This comparative concept works because during any given period or style, particularly after the introduction of pattern books such as Thomas Chippendale’s The Gentleman and Cabinet Maker’s Director in 1754, there were conventions, dictated by fashion, that proscribed the basic characteristics of a given form. As such, all bureaus, beds, sofas, sewing or games tables, secretaries or sideboards, for example, had a recognizable similarity to each other whether they were made in Boston, Philadelphia or New York. Their designs were not random, but related, irrespective of regional or shop practices. Yet, it is the development and refinement of the basic form brought by the individual artisan working within that idiom that transforms it from average to great. The average examples, of which there are many, form the baseline for judging the extraordinary, of which there are very few.
Sack’s volume, useful as it is, does not substitute for a quarter of a century of studying this material, first hand, at museums, auctions, private collections, flea markets, symposia and a comprehensive private library of books and scholarly studies on the subject. Nor does it substitute for the learning that comes from owning and handling multiple examples. Indeed, nothing can substitute for the scholarship earned by investing one’s own capital in fine objects. That is why the locus of connoisseurship is in the dealer community.
After a few decades of passionate involvement, having seen literally hundreds of sofas, chairs, tables, commodes and secretaries of the period, it is relatively easy to tell the wheat from the chaff within the context of its city of origin, though distinguishing between the A and the A+ example is the work of a highly trained eye. Weeding through fakes, forgeries and clever concealment of unacceptable condition issues is a regular part of protecting our clients.
Our clients know that we have a deep and comprehensive understanding of these gradations of quality and can defend them. They know that these distinctions are not arbitrary and that we strive to only find and offer pieces at the top end of the spectrum; pieces that relate closely to or are superior to examples found in fine museum collections and published examples. That is why museum curators across the United States trust us with scarce acquisition dollars. It is no accident that twenty such renowned institutions are our clients.
“Importance”, therefore, is an objective determination based on the superior quality of design of a particular example. Not predicated on a surfeit of carving, or gilding or paint decoration or inlay, or brass appliqués or any decorative element but a design that is an artistic and sublime balance of proportion, decoration, quality of materials, craftsmanship, condition and rarity that raises it above all other known examples of the form. That is what we call “important,” and if George Washington owned it, so much the better. |
BBVA API Market
A simple search on Google Trends shows how the technologies making up this development package are becoming increasingly popular in the community:
MEAN quartet characteristics
MongoDB is one of the NoSQL databases most widely used on the market. Specifically, it is a multi-platform database management system oriented at documents (set of records or data) and with a completely free scheme (it must not be predefined). This means that each document (for example, information on products or clients) can have attributes different from the rest.
Some of its key technical features are:
– It stores structured, semi-structured and unstructured data.
– Database management system prepared to offer scalability, performance and high availability of large volumes of data.
– Agile in both read and write processes, under an in-memory computing protocol. This means that any company can grow quickly in terms of the number of applications and projects, without this entailing an increase in development time and, therefore, growing costs.
– It has native replication and fault tolerance, a key element if the project requires high levels of reliability and security.
– There are drivers in most programming languages: C#, C, C++, PHP, Python, Ruby, Java, Perl…
– It operates on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux operating systems.
– It is open source, under a GNU AGPL v.3.0 license.
Google is behind its launch and maintenance, so it is a rather sound solution for the community. Its aim is to optimize both development and testing in the design process.
This framework is basically designed for developing single-page web applications (SPAs), i.e. the user browses the different views of the app without a traditional browsing through the URLs. This greatly improves the user experience in two ways: wait times and latency during browsing are reduced. The applications are faster and smoother.
The key features of AngularJS are:
– Bidirectional data-binding system. The Model and the View are always updated in sync with any change in the data. This makes a lot of sense for a developer because it avoids having to write code again and again. Any change in the DOM modifies the Model and any modification in the Model transforms the DOM. The fact that this process is automatic is a relief when an application grows in volume.
– It has a Dependency Injection pattern, which enables more useful and simple creation of objects for programmers. This pattern enables the separation of the code by responsibilities and the creation of objects in a structure independent of the rest of the objects.
In traditional operation, each new connection with the server is associated with a consumption of 2 MB of memory. In a standard system with 8 GB of RAM, the limit for this application would be 4,000 simultaneous user connections. With Node.js this scenario changes completely. Each machine would be able to support over one million connections at the same time.
Some of its key features include:
– Asynchronous programming.
– Event-oriented programming.
– It supports the integration of third-party modules that can extend the functionality of Node.js in web app development.
Express is a server-side framework for developing web applications using Node.js. It is inspired in Sinatra. It is a fast and flexible framework with a large community behind it, which is always important due to the volume of documentation existing for project development.
Some of its features include:
– It offers a URL Router.
– Accessible creation of APIs.
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Startups and existing companies in the process of digitization need a new set of digital tools to help them transform their businesses and get more in tune with their customers' needs. If possible, they should develop frictionless systems that do not create barriers to entry for the business, as occurs with some banking solutions.
A good cash flow management ultimately leads to more informed and wise financial decision making. Keeping operations up-to-date, knowing the cash flows well and discovering where there may be inconsistencies are just some of the processes that must be carried out on a daily basis to achieve this.
Taking a customer through the entire buying process until it is formalized is an arduous journey and one that faces the constant possibility of the customer leaving. However, there are ways to make the buying decision happen if you are given facilities such as agile, secure financing. |
For 2020, Cushman has identified three key environmental trends for real estate: new legislation, investor caution on environmental-related issues and the utilisation of data to help assess climate risk.
Andrew Phipps Head of EMEA Research & Insight, at Cushman & Wakefield explains:
“Legislators are still pressing the real estate industry: across Europe, we identified more than 1,500 national policies and measures at mitigating climate change in ways connected to real estate – and this will increase over the next decade. Energy consumption and energy supply made the majority (44%) of the reported policies, followed by transport (21%). Improving energy efficiency of buildings is among the main goals of these policies.
“Investors are still waiting for occupiers to confirm a strong demand for ‘green’ properties. Investment managers are increasingly aware that long-term profitability will suffer if they are not able to include climate risk in their pricing, but they do not necessarily understand climate risk well enough to accurately price in climate-oriented features. As with electric cars or organic vegetables, people want these and know they should have them – but they don’t necessarily want to pay for them.
“There is, however increasing evidence that corporate occupiers are willing to pay increased or premium rents for such assets. Investment managers are increasingly aware that, if they are not able to include climate risk in their pricing, this will probably have impacts on their portfolio as it could hurt the long-term profitability of their assets. But market players do not sufficiently understand climate risks enough to price them in today.
“Various technologies are emerging to help investors price properties with climate features more accurately. These tools analyse the vulnerability of assets to climate risks, as well as the impact of such risks on market value; data is then used to guide the programming, planning and costing of necessary mitigation work, alongside an estimate of the consequent financial impact.
“Investors will increase their interest in analysing climate change and related risk as this will affect the profitability of their portfolios. Above all, institutional investors with long term strategies, like Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWF) and state-owned banks.” |
Stefan Stockli, Elissa R. Ettinger, Niek E. Vanquathem BA.
Background: Peripheral nerve stimulation (PNS) of the lateral femoral cutaneous nerve provides control of burning pain and severe allodynia in the anterolateral thigh at the right side.
Objective: To assess analgesic effects of a minimally invasive wireless neuromodulation in the treatment of chronic pain due to Meralgia Paresthetica.
Case Summary: A patient presented with burning pain and severe allodynia in the right anterolateral thigh, and was subsequently diagnosed with Meralgia Paresthetica. The patient’s problems began with arthroscopy of the knee for cruciate ligament repair and several debridements following that. Thereafter, he developed infection, empyema, and life-threatening necrotizing fasciitis. In 2015, he had adhesiolysis of the femoral cutaneous nerve by a hand surgeon resulting in one year relief of pain, and thereafter, recurring pain. Other previous therapies attempted include: cryoablation of the femoral cutaneous nerve; repeated ultrasound-guided femoral cutaneous nerve blocks; physiotherapy; and medications including tramadol, paracetamol, acemetacin, tapentadol, pregabalin, lidocaine patch, and trimipramin. Patient was deemed a suitable candidate for a minimally invasive neuromodulation procedure. One subcutaneous electrode was inserted approximately 20 cm below the groin in the anterior thigh on the right side, and placed on the lateral femoral cutaneous nerve.
Results: The procedure was uneventful, and pain scores (NRS) reduced from a 10 out of 10 before stimulation to a 0 while applying stimulation at 3-months follow-up.
Conclusions: Subcutaneous placement of electrodes with a minimally invasive technique and wireless technology was safe and effective. Significant improvements in pain relief ensued at the three-month follow-up with no adverse events.View pdf |
Description of Haplosporidia
Circumscription: Sporozoan parasites of mostly marine invertebrates. Trophic cells uninueleate or multinucleate, intracellular, and no flagella. Spore walls develop intracellularly from haplosporosomes, and the spore has a distinctive lid and often extraneous filaments. Held by some to be related to the alveolates, but there is no evidence of alveoli. Ultrastructural identity: Mitochondria with tubular cristae. Dividing nucleus with internal spindle and the nuclear envelope remains intact. There is a residuum of parallel microtubules from the mitotic spindle, and this kernstab persists through interphase. Synapomorphy: Tubulocristate protists with lidded spore and/or persistent spindle (Kernstab) in nondividing nucleus. Composition: Several genera with about 35 nominal species.
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Pathological secretions include secretion of various colors and consistencies, which can be transparent, dark, sticky, with particles of blood. The discharge may be accompanied by pain, the formation of lumps, swelling of the nipples, an increase or change in the structure of the mammary glands.
Causes of Breast Discharge
Colostrum production during 9 months of pregnancy and after cessation of lactation is not a pathology. The norm is considered and minor transparent discharge before menstruation and at the time of excitation, which may be associated with the use of hormonal drugs.
Pathological causes of discharge from the mammary glands:
- galactorrhea caused by hormonal imbalance;
- milk duct ectasia;
- intraductal papilloma;
- malignant neoplasms;
- chest trauma;
- breast inflammation;
- taking antidepressants, in particular, amitriptyline and similar medications.
Consider each cause of discharge from the mammary glands separately.
Galactorrhea – pathological discharge by the mammary glands of milk, colostrum when pressed, not associated with the process of feeding the baby. The disease can be caused by hormonal disorders, benign pituitary tumors, dysfunctions of the hypothalamus and thyroid gland..
Milk duct ectasia represents pathological changes in the milk channels of the breast. The disease can be recognized by seals in the chest area, a nipple that becomes retracted with thick, clammy, dark discharge. Usually older women are affected by ectasia..
Intraductal papilloma – A benign neoplasm that develops in the milk ducts, accompanied by abundant transparent, pink or greenish discharge. This disease is also observed in older women..
Mastopathy – benign disease of the mammary glands, characterized by proliferation of connective tissue. Mastopathy is accompanied by tenderness in the chest area and discharge from the nipples, which can be either transparent or bloody, brown and greenish purulent.
Chest injury accompanied by pain and bloody, profuse or spotting, which becomes yellowish as it heals.
Malignant neoplasms (breast cancer) – usually the cancer proceeds over the years without any signs, and at some point it can report itself as a seal in the mammary glands, an increase in lymph nodes in the armpits, skin erosion, violation of the symmetry of the mammary glands and secretions from transparent to bloody even purulent.
Disease detection by discharge color
As a rule, transparent, white and yellow discharge does not always indicate the development of a pathological process. At the same time, green, brown, with blood impurities are a sign of a serious illness, which will cause an urgent medical examination.
Transparent highlight – if the discharge proceeds without any changes in the mammary glands, then the phenomenon can be caused by stress, hormonal imbalance, taking hormonal contraceptives.
White discharge – during pregnancy and in the first months after the cessation of lactation are considered normal. In other cases, the appearance of white secretion when pressed indicates galactorrhea, caused by increased production of estrogen and an increase in the hormone prolactin. Sometimes discharge can be associated with pathological changes in the pituitary and hypothalamus, thyroid dysfunction.
Yellow discharge – are not a sign of a dangerous disease, but it is definitely worth examining. Also, light milky yellow secretion may be one of the signs of pregnancy..
Green highlight – This is a clear sign of mastopathy. The consistency of discharge is thick and mucous. Necessarily accompanied by seals in the mammary glands and tenderness in the chest area.
Brown discharge – can be caused by bleeding in the milk ducts, as well as the development of mastopathy and malignant tumors. As a rule, dark and in some cases black color is caused by the presence of blood.
Bloody issues – One of the most serious, which can talk about the development of a malignant tumor or intraductal papilloma. Also, strong or smeared blood-red discharge may appear due to chest injury..
Purulent discharge – caused by inflammatory and infectious processes in the chest. There is a temperature, pain, redness of the skin in the nipple, swelling and swelling of the chest.
Which doctor to contact for discharge
If secretions are detected, regardless of color and consistency, you must undergo a medical examination by a gynecologist. After the examination, the doctor will send for further examination, which may include the following diagnostics:
- examination by a mammologist;
- analysis of blood and fluid secreted from the chest;
- Ultrasound of the mammary glands;
- ductogram or breast MRI.
Regardless of the color of the discharge from the mammary glands and the absence of soreness, you should not postpone the visit to the doctor. Any changes in the mammary glands can be a sign of a serious illness.. |
Adaptability is one of the keys to managing your emotions in the workplace. This short video looks at why it is important, and gives you some tips to help increase ...
Positive Psychology Study Guide
Find more lesson plans like this:Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace: Definition & Meaning
Clip makes it super easy to turn any public video into a formative assessment activity in your classroom.
Add multiple choice quizzes, questions and browse hundreds of approved, video lesson ideas for Clip
Make YouTube one of your teaching aids - Works perfectly with lesson micro-teaching plans
1. Students enter a simple code
2. You play the video
3. The students comment
4. You review and reflect
* Whiteboard required for teacher-paced activities
With four apps, each designed around existing classroom activities, Spiral gives you the power to do formative assessment with anything you teach.
Carry out a quickfire formative assessment to see what the whole class is thinking
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Student teams can create and share collaborative presentations from linked devices
Turn any public video into a live chat with questions and quizzes |
Okay so .....
A mouse is running a donut-shaped track with equation:
(X-4)^2 + (Y-3)^2 = 4
At the same time a cat is running a coplanar intersecting opaque track with equation:
[(X-4)^2] ÷ 9 + [(Y-3)^2] ÷ 1 = 1
What are the four possible coordinates of the intersections (simultaneous solutions) where the mouse might catch the cat?
Thanks so much if you can help me out |
With a softer landing and smoother transition, the new SENSE PRO 2 is the ideal choice for balancing protection and feel on light trails.
- ProFeel film and low midsole height balance terrain feel and protection.
- Lightweight materials and bonded seams reduce weight.
- Sensifit with quicklace and friction free eyelets wraps the foot precisely and comfortably. Endofit improves ground feel and comfort.
- OrthoLite® sockliner combines a specific Ortholite® foam and an EVA heel cup. Ortholite® foam creates a cooler, drier, healthier, better cushioned environment under the foot. It will not break down or lose effectiveness over time. Recycled tire content to protect the environment. EVA heel cups allows for a better heel support and added cushioning.
- Single layer open air mesh combined with nylon layer allows extrem breathability and top abrasion resistance.
- Midsole height: 23mm / 17mm (6mm drop)
- Weight: 440 grams (UK 6, Pair)
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16-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Monday, January 8, 1912: A regular snow storm set in this afternoon. How beautiful the snowflakes looked as they descended to ground. Am now able to extract the cube root without difficulty. Pa came for Jimmie and me this evening.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
The teacher must have clarified how to do cube roots. Grandma was struggling with cube roots the previous Friday.
As a parent who had strong opinions during the “math wars” of the 1990’s about what should be included in (and, perhaps more importantly, what should be excluded from) the math curriculum, I’m fascinated by early 20th century math text books.
In textbooks from a hundred years ago, there was more focus on calculation than there is today but they also contained some cool word problems. Cube roots are a great example of this.
Here are some cube root word problems from a 1911 textbook called Kimball’s Commercial Arithmetic:
1. If a cubical block contains 21,952 cubic inches, how many square feet of paper will be required to cover the entire surface?
2. The entire surface of a cubic block is 384 square feet. How many 1-foot cubes can be cut from the block, allowing nothing for waste?
3. A cubical cistern holds 400 bbl. of water. How deep is it?
4. What are the dimensions of a cube that has the same volume as a box 2 ft. 8 in. long, 2 ft. 3 in. wide, and 1 ft. 4 in. deep?
The texts also contained lots of “tricks” and principles.
1. The cube of a number cannot have more than three times as many figures as its root, nor but two less.
2. If a number is separated into periods of three figures each beginning at the units’ place, the number of figures in the cube root will be the same as the number of periods.
I thought of several easy cube roots (100 is the cube root of 1,000,000. and 5 is the cube root of 125.), and decided that the principles are correct. (Of course they were correct—but somehow I felt better after I thought of a few problems to confirm it.)
If you’re a math geek, here are some previous posts that explored the math curriculum and problems from a hundred years ago. |
Global undernourishment shouldn’t exist. Each day the world’s farmers and ranchers produce the equivalent of 2,868 calories per person on the planet – enough to surpass the World Food Programme’s recommended intake of 2,100 daily calories and enough to support a population inching toward nine billion. The world as a whole does not have a food deficit, but individual countries do.
Why do 805 million people still have too little to eat? Access is the main problem. Incomes and commodity prices establish where food goes. The quality of roads and airports determines how easily it gets there. Even measuring undernourishment is a challenge. In countries with the highest historical proportions of undernourishment, it can be hard to get food in and data out.
Things are slowly getting better. Since the early 1990s world hunger has dropped by 40% – that means 209 million fewer undernourished people, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Future progress may prove difficult. “It is critical to first improve overall food production and availability in places like sub-Saharan Africa,” says FAO economist Josef Schmidhuber. “Then one can focus on access.”
-Daniel Stone, National Geographic magazine, December, 2014 |
Article: article from journal or magazin.
Streptococcal infection of endocardial and other intravascular vegetations in rabbits: natural history and effect of dexamethasone
Infection and Immunity
Journal Article --- Old month value: May
Experiments were designed to study the natural history of infection in different parts of the vascular system. Sterile vegetations were produced in rabbits by placing catheters in the inferior vena cava, tricuspid or aortic valves, and thoracic or abdominal aorta and then were infected by the intravenous inoculation of Streptococcus sanguis. At 1 day after bacterial challenge, all VEGS were infected, mean bacterial densities being highest in the VEGS of the aortic and tricuspid valves. By 14 days, there was a significant decrease in the mean bacterial density in all VEGS except for the aortic valve: the VEGS of the inferior vena cava and abdominal aorta were sterile, as were half of those of the thoracic aorta. There were no deaths except for animals with aortic valve infection. Dexamethasone inhibited the sterilization of the thoracic aorta VEGS, but was without effect on aortic valve VEGS, 5 mm distant. Sterilization of tricuspid valve VEGS after catheter removal was also inhibited by dexamethasone. Thus, there are host defense mechanisms which lead to the sterilization of infections everywhere in the vascular system except in the left side of the heart, and these mechanisms, as yet undefined, are inhibited by dexamethasone.
Animals Blood Vessels/*microbiology Dexamethasone/*pharmacology Endocarditis, Bacterial/*microbiology Endothelium/microbiology Heart Valves/*microbiology Immunity/drug effects Rabbits Streptococcal Infections/*microbiology Streptococcus sanguis Time Factors
Web of science
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Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand are also responsible for producing more than 90 per cent of global palm oil, which consequently causes 27 million tonnes of waste per annum from fruit bunches (EFBs), fibres, shells and liquid effluent.
Agricultural Waste into Biopolymers?
Article from | Teysha Technologies
Southeast Asian regions are some of the biggest worldwide agriculture producers, as well as the main areas responsible for biomass wastes, such as agricultural residues, wood biomass, animal waste and municipal solid waste, while also producing, millions of tonnes of single use plastics. To tackle such waste head-on, second generation plastic substitute specialist Teysha Technologies has developed a patented chemistry platform that can be used to transform agriculture waste into a wide variety of sustainable packaging and construction materials.
In the southern Asiatic regions, including Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines and Vietnam, more than 38 million tonnes of rice husk and 34 million tonnes of bagasse are produced every year. Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand are also responsible for producing more than 90 per cent of global palm oil, which consequently causes 27 million tonnes of waste per annum from fruit bunches (EFBs), fibres, shells and liquid effluent.
Although Southern regions in Asia are major worldwide agriculture producers, farming practices are sometimes antiquated and often environmentally harmful. Every year, thousands of tonnes of biomasses, including stems, leaves and seed pods, are destroyed, waste from crops are commonly left in the field to decompose or – much worse – burned, causing approximately 13 per cent of agricultural greenhouse gas emissions, according to a recent study in Science Direct.
This technique of burning agriculture waste is often referred to as slash-and-burn, which involves large fires and can greatly contribute to mass deforestation. This practice causes air pollution as many toxic gasses, such as methane, nitrogen oxide and ammonia are released in the atmosphere. Breathing these gases can in turn pose more health risks, such as the respiratory illness asthma, chronic bronchitis as well as eye and skin diseases.
In Indonesia, for example, agricultural businesses regularly use the slash and burn method to clear vegetation and waste from their land every year. Indonesia's national disaster agency counted more than 328,724 hectares of land burnt from January to August 2019, which caused the closure of schools and offices as the haze reached very unhealthy levels on the Air Pollutants Index (API).
“Burning the agriculture waste destroys the quality of the soil. When crops are burnt, existing minerals and organic material are destroyed, such as the cellulose and the sugar from the trees, starch from tapioca, corn and wheat; and even coconut, palm, soy and rapeseed, all of which are potentially valuable natural resources” said Matthew Stone, Chairman at plastic substitute specialist Teysha Technologies.
“Large multinational agricultural conglomerates often own and operate both upstream agricultural production and downstream manufacturing, packaging and distribution operations in Asia. Meaning, they are not only responsible for large scale agriculture waste, but also for the use of millions of tonnes of single use plastic every year in their product packaging, plastic which is polluting rivers and oceans at an unacceptable rate.
“In a 2015 report, the non-profit organisation Ocean Conservancy noted that 55 to 60 percent of plastic waste entering the world’s oceans comes from just five countries, including four in the region: China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. The debris kills marine life and breaks down into microparticles that make their way into the food chain. China alone is responsible for producing 8.8 million metric tonnes of plastic waste that goes directly into our oceans. At this rate, according to the World Economic Forum report, there will be more plastic than fish in the ocean by 2050.
“Instead of using traditional petrochemical plastics in their production and distribution networks, large agriculture conglomerates could embrace new biopolymer technology and profit from their vast waste streams, while saving the planet from incessant pollution. Waste from common crops like sugar bagasse, tapioca, corn and wheat contain cellulose and starch, two natural raw materials that our chemical engineers can use to create a second generation of bioplastics and help reduce waste in a sustainable way.”
Teysha Technologies is an innovative UK company that has been making huge inroads into producing biopolymers from organic feedstocks. The versatile technology platform they have created is based on polymers derived entirely from natural feedstocks which can degrade in natural environments within a relatively short period of time. Most importantly, these polymers are a realistic substitute for existing petroleum-based polycarbonates.
“Teysha’s technology is a plug-and-play system that use monomers and co-monomers — also known as the natural building blocks that make up plastic — to create a polymer that works and functions like normal plastic,” explains Stone, “Instead of using hydrocarbon-based petrochemicals sourced from fossil fuels, Teysha uses natural sources such as starches and agricultural waste products.
“The positive aspect of this platform is that the physical, mechanical and chemical properties of the polymers can be tuned to make them usable in a wide variety of applications and materials.”
The strength, toughness, durability and longevity of Teysha Technologies’ polymers can suit multiple different uses. That means it’s possible to create either rigid or flexible materials, or even different polymers with different thermal properties. Most importantly, it is possible to control the biodegradation of the polymers, which means their breakdown can be effectively scheduled for within weeks or years. At the point of degradation, they will break down back to their basic natural building blocks, which is beneficial to the environment.
As the worldwide sustainably and plastic pollution policy changes rapidly, the Asian market needs new and effective strategies to make the best use of their abundant natural resources whilst protecting their rivers and oceans. Platforms like the ones created by Teysha can play a vital part in this sustainability mission.
The content & opinions in this article are the author’s and do not necessarily represent the views of AgriTechTomorrow
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Greentint paper. Squares on both sides. Three-hole punched. This product was made from wood that came from a certified managed forest.
- Greentint paper.
- Squares on both sides.
- Three-hole punched.
- 16-lb. paper weight.
- This product was made from wood that came from a certified managed forest.
8 1/2" x 11"
Quadrille (5 sq./in.)
Number of Sheets per Pad:
3-Hole Side Punched
Lines Per Page:
Pre-Consumer Recycled Content Percent:
Post-Consumer Recycled Content Percent:
Total Recycled Content Percent:
Includes one engineering computation pad.
Country of Origin:
* Country of Origin information is based on information provided by product manufacturers. The information has not been independently verified and we do not warrant its accuracy. |
of the cranefly looks much like that of the mosquito larvae,
but is larger and is brown, gray or white and often quite transparent.
They feed on detritus, such as decaying leaves, which accumulates in ponds
or backwater streams. Cranefly larvae breathe through a disk in their tails
and, like mosquitoes, hang downward from the surface film of the water
adults, which are often mistaken for giant mosquitoes, are actually
harmless. They are long and slender with very long legs. "Mosquito hawk"
is another common name given to the cranefly. |
Mostly Flat & Heavily WoodedCourse Landscape / Terrain:
9 / 9Holes / Baskets:
1800 ft.Course Length: Metric
DGCR SSE: [ ? ]
No / NoMultiple Tees / Pins:
Description: Short but very technical. Fairways littered with lots of trees. Park fee $8 (except off-season, after 7 p.m., or with Empire Passport). |
Print version ISSN 0042-9686
Bull World Health Organ vol.79 n.3 Genebra Jan. 2001
OBJECTIVE: The present study compares the cost-effectiveness of targeted household treatment and mass treatment of children in the most westerly part of Nepal.
METHODS: Effectiveness was measured as the percentage point change in the prevalence of trachoma. Resource measures included personnel time required for treatment, transportation, the time that study subjects had to wait to receive treatment, and the quantity of azithromycin used. The costs of the programme were calculated from the perspectives of the public health programme sponsor, the study subjects, and the society as a whole.
FINDINGS: Previous studies have indicated no statistically significant differences in effectiveness, and the present work showed no significant differences in total personnel and transportation costs per child aged 110 years, the total time that adults spent waiting, or the quantity of azithromycin per child. However, the mass treatment of children was slightly more effective and used less of each resource per child aged 110 years than the targeted treatment of households.
CONCLUSION: From all perspectives, the mass treatment of children is at least as effective and no more expensive than targeted household treatment, notwithstanding the absence of statistically significant differences. Less expensive targeting methods are required in order to make targeted household treatment more cost-effective.
Keywords: Trachoma/drug therapy; Azithromycin/supply and distribution; Child; Cost-benefit analysis; Comparative study; Nepal (source: MeSH).
Mots clés: Trachome/chimiothérapie; Azithromycine/ressources et distribution; Enfant; Analyse cot-bénéfice; Etude comparative; Népal (source: INSERM).
Palabras clave: Palabras clave: Tracoma/quimioterapia; Azitromicina/provisión y distribución; Niño; Análisis de costo-beneficio; Estudio comparativo; Nepal (fuente: BIREME).
Trachoma remains endemic primarily in the poorest regions of some of the poorest countries of the world and has been described as a forgotten disease of forgotten people (1). WHOs SAFE strategy (Surgery for trichiasis, Antibiotic treatment of trachoma, and Face-washing and Environmental change to reduce the spread of disease) can be used in attempts to accelerate the decrease in the prevalence of trachomatous blindness (2). Trachomatous blindness in adulthood is the consequence of a process that begins in childhood. Individuals who have repeated episodes of ocular infection by Chlamydia trachomatis are at risk for sequelae. The severity of infection is classified as intense or follicular. Individuals with intense infection are at higher risk of sequelae than those with only follicular infection. Sequelae include scarring of the upper eyelid and inturned eyelashes, possibly leading to corneal opacification and blindness (3).
A single-dose treatment with azithromycin can be employed as the antibiotic component of the SAFE strategy. Azithromycin can be used to treat either an entire population subgroup (e.g. all children aged 110 years) or targeted subgroups (e.g. all households with a child aged 110 years with active trachoma). The relative effectiveness and cost of these approaches for both the public health programme sponsor and the targeted population are important considerations in allocating resources to a trachoma control programme.
In the present study, interventions were carried out in the most westerly part of Nepal in wards where active trachoma occurred in over 15% of children. In a national study it was found that trachoma accounted for approximately 4% of all blindness (4), and it had previously been reported that the disease occurred predominantly in the most westerly part of the country (5). Although no significant difference in effectiveness was detected between the mass treatment of children and targeted household treatment (6), a cost comparison was nevertheless desirable in order to assess which treatment was less costly. The present study involved a cost-effectiveness analysis in which two methods of distributing azithromycin were compared: the mass treatment of children aged 110 years and the targeted treatment of children aged 110 years with clinically active trachoma together with the other members of their households. Targeted treatments are intuitively appealing because of the expectation that the resources used, including antibiotics, will be directed to the persons most in need and to those around them to whom they could transmit the disease. The potential cost-effectiveness of targeted household treatment for trachoma control may be difficult to achieve, however, because of the problems posed by diagnosing trachomatous infection on the basis of only a clinical examination(7, 8).
The economic theory underlying cost-effectiveness research in developing countries and useful methodological approaches have been described previously (912).
The methods for providing targeted and mass treatments have been described elsewhere (6). In Nepal a ward is a subdivision of the smallest unit of local government, the village development committee (VDC). Each VDC covers a geographically defined region and contains 9 wards. Wards were identified in which the average prevalence of active trachoma in children exceeded 15%. The study was explained to ward chiefs and community members.
Individual wards, or combinations of wards that shared a common school, were randomly allocated to one of the following two treatments.
All children aged 110 years were examined and treated with a dose of azithromycin adjusted for body weight. In the light of previous studies it was not expected that adverse effects of azithromycin would pose a problem for mass treatment (13, 14).
Screening was conducted in order to identify children with active trachoma. They, their siblings and other household members were treated with azithromycin; pregnant women were offered erythromycin or topical treatment. As described previously, household composition data had been gathered when a census was taken before the intervention (6). Households, defined as all individuals dwelling in the same free-standing structure, included 1.5 families on average.
Measuring effectiveness of interventions
The prevalence of trachoma in the wards was measured by a previously described procedure just before and six months after the interventions (6). WHOs simplified grading scheme was used to determine whether individuals had active trachoma (15). Initial screening was performed in December 1998 and follow-up screening took place in June 1999. In accordance with ordinary seasonal fluctuations, the prevalence of active trachoma would be expected to be higher in June than in December.
Effectiveness was measured by the percentage point change in the prevalence of trachoma in children aged 110 years between the baseline and the six-month assessments. The percentage point change was used in the cost-effectiveness analysis because one preferred measure of effectiveness (disability-adjusted life years averted) is based on the number of cases avoided rather than on the proportion of cases avoided. The percentage point change was also acceptable because the average baseline prevalence was similar in the two treatments.
Unit of measurement of costs
The unit of measurement for costs was the cost per child aged 110 years in a ward, i.e. the cost per member of the target population. Consequently, differences in average cost between villages were based on differences in efficiency rather than differences in village size. The number treated or screened was noted in each ward. A sample of five wards spanning the two study arms indicated that, on average, 79% of the children in the wards presented for screening or treatment.
Perspectives on costs
Costs were measured from the perspectives of the public health programme sponsor, the ward members, and society, i.e. combining the previous two. The programme sponsor was either the government or a nongovernmental organization. The programme sponsors costs were tabulated with and without the cost of azithromycin.
The costs of research were not included as part of the intervention costs. In particular, the costs incurred by both the public health programme sponsor and the ward members in relation to all testing other than the survey for clinical activity and screening at the six-month follow-up were excluded. Any intervention would use WHOs simplified grading scheme rather than other testing.
Quantity and price measures for included costs
The persons carrying out the study completed forms that yielded data on the length of time required for the intervention in each ward. The forms indicated the personnel who went to the wards, the times of entry into and departure from the wards, and the proportions of time spent in research and intervention activities. The intervention time in each ward was calculated from these data.
Monthly wage rates were provided by the Geta Eye Hospital in Nepal. Wages for the investigators from the USA were adjusted to levels appropriate for equivalent personnel from Nepal who were not trained to do the research. In order to calculate an hourly wage rate the monthly rate was divided by 26 x 7 (working days per month x hours per working day). An hourly rate was used because not all wards required an entire day for treatment, and, in some cases, several wards were treated simultaneously.
Each individuals wage earned for the time spent in a ward was the product of the hourly rate, the number of hours and the proportion of the time spent on intervention activities. The wages for all personnel who went to a ward were summed.
The members of the treatment team also spent time travelling to the wards. Travel time was standardized to the average across all villages so that the variation in cost was attributable to the number of trips rather than the distances to the villages. Transportation costs also included the cost of using a vehicle. The project paid a daily charge of 1000 Nepali rupees (NPR) to the Geta Eye Hospital for the use of their vehicle.When more than one ward was visited on a given day the total cost of using a vehicle was apportioned in accordance with the time spent in each.
The only part of ward members time that was counted as a cost was that spent waiting for examination and treatment. On the basis of the average number of children aged <10 years in a family, one adult was assumed to accompany 1.86 children for screening and treatment in the wards where the mass treatment of children was conducted. The childrens time was not valued, as there was no standard method for calculating the opportunity cost of childrens time. In the wards where targeted household treatment took place, one adult was assumed to wait with each 1.86 children for screening and adult time spent waiting for household treatment was also counted. Average census data indicated that 1.24 adults, i.e. persons aged over 14 years, had to wait with each child treated in the targeted household treatment group.
A monetary value was assigned to ward members waiting time so that a societal cost measure could be constructed. The annual average value added per agricultural worker in Nepal approximated to the suggested measure (16), i.e. the annual earnings of a rural adult (9). This was converted into an hourly rate, multiplied by the number of hours spent waiting, and the value obtained was converted from US$ into NPR using the average exchange rate during 1995. Finally, conversion into the value of the NPR in 1998 was effected on the basis of the consumer inflation rate in Nepal (1720).
The quantities of azithromycin used were obtained from project records. Boxes of six 250-mg capsules were obtained for 238 NPR (1999) each from an Indian supplier (Wockhardt Ltd., Mumbai, India). This was lower than the published wholesale cost in the USA (21). At the time of the study there was no supplier of azithromycin suspension in Nepal. For the present analysis the listed relative average wholesale prices of a capsule (US$ 6.22; Allscripts, Libertyville, IL, USA) and a 30-ml bottle of suspension (US$ 27.74; Pfizer, New York, NY, USA)(21) were assumed to be uniform internationally.
All statistical tests were performed by means of Stata 6.0 (StataCorp. 1999, Stata Statistical Software, Release 6.0, College Station, TX, USA). Each ward yielded one observation on the average cost per child aged 110 years. The total costs were divided by the number of children screened and adjusted on the assumption that 79% of the children presented for screening or treatment. A weighted average per child was calculated from the data on the cost per child, using the number of children screened as the weight. Simple weighted linear regressions were used to test for differences in cost between treatments.
Table 1 shows the source of data for each element of the cost calculation. The data were obtained directly, taken from published reports, or based on assumptions.
Table 2 shows the results on efficacy. The mass treatment was marginally more effective than the targeted household treatment. The lack of a statistically significant difference has been demonstrated elsewhere (6). In the wards where the mass treatment of children was conducted, the weighted average change in prevalence was 6.4 percentage points, whereas a corresponding value of 4.4 percentage points was obtained for the targeted household treatment.
Table 3 compares the personnel and travel costs associated with the two arms of the study. Each ward where the mass treatment of children took place required one round trip taking 36 min each way on average for all the wards. Each ward where targeted household treatment took place required at least two round trips that were assumed to take the same time. Since fieldwork not associated with a study was unlikely to involve the treatment team returning to the ward more than twice, it was assumed that screening and treatment in these villages required exactly two round trips. This biased the total cost of targeted household treatment downward for a given level of effectiveness. Mass treatment of children was given in one more ward of the study than was the case with targeted household treatment, and this biased the cost upward for mass treatment. However, the personnel and transportation costs were lower individually and also in combination for the mass treatment of children, although no statistically significant differences were found. The primary reason for the difference in personnel cost per child examined was the need for return visits to targeted households in which there were children with active trachoma so that treatment could be given to all members of these households. Two-tailed tests in weighted simple linear regressions indicated that there were no statistically significant differences between the treatments in respect of cost components or totals (P < 0.05).
Table 4 shows data on average antibiotic utilization within the treatments. The targeted household treatment required an additional 1.3 capsules per child and saved approximately 0.1 bottles of suspension per child screened. The cost of azithromycin per child was over twice as high in the wards where targeted household treatment was carried out than in those where mass treatment was conducted, although the difference was not statistically significant according to a two-tailed test in a weighted simple linear regression. Such tests also indicated that the total amounts of azithromycin used were not significantly different (P < 0.05). The cost of the suspension was significantly greater for mass treatment of children than for targeted household treatment, whereas the cost of capsules was significantly greater in the latter treatment.
Table 5 compares adult ward members opportunity costs of time in the two treatments. Valuing Nepali agricultural workers time at approximately 5.7 NPR per hour, the difference in the total waiting time cost per child was approximately 0.3 NPR. The total average waiting time was divided between the average waiting time for examination and that for treatment. On average, the targeted household treatment wards had lower opportunity costs for initial waiting times than the mass treatment wards. However, the average opportunity cost of the total waiting time was higher in the targeted wards because of the longer time required for treatment of a family than for that of a child. Use of two-tailed tests in weighted simple linear regressions indicated that neither the opportunity cost of the time spent waiting for the initial examination nor that of the total waiting time was significantly different between treatments (P < 0.05).
Since the average time to treat a family was 26.4 minutes, the total treatment time in the villages where targeted household treatment was performed would still have been longer unless the prevalence of active trachoma fell below 4.5%, a level that occurred in only one ward at baseline.
Two of the wards (or combinations of wards) in the targeted household treatment had an inordinately high waiting time for the initial examination and for the treatment, whereas this occurred in only one ward combination where the mass treatment was given. Two of the three wards that had inordinately high times were among the largest, although in one large ward the intervention appeared to operate efficiently and in another the waiting time was high but not inordinately so. Outlier waiting times in the large wards, therefore, probably did not have an inordinate influence on the results.
Asummary of costs is given in Table 6. As noted above, there were no statistically significantly differences in individual cost components. The difference in the costs from the adult ward members perspective is not statistically significant. The difference in the public health programme sponsors costs, excluding azithromycin, is small. From the societal perspective the difference in the cost of azithromycin is dominant.
The targeted household treatment was no more effective, was more costly in personnel time, and used more antibiotic than the mass treatment. Less waiting time was required in the targeted treatment of adult ward members whose children did not have trachoma but the average total time required was nearly identical in the two treatments.
Sensitivity analyses could be performed in order to assess the robustness of the finding that the mass treatment of children was less expensive than the targeted household treatment under different assumptions. Such analyses were not undertaken, however, because the following changes in assumptions would make the targeted household treatment even more costly relative to the mass treatment of children.
First, all return visits to the wards where targeted household treatment took place could have been included in the cost calculation, rather than assuming that only two visits were made. This change in assumptions would have increased the personnel costs for the targeted household treatment, so that the total costs would have been even higher relative to those for the mass treatment of children. Second, per diem wages could have been used instead of hourly wages. However, the per diem wages were higher and would have increased the cost differential between the two treatments. Third, it could have been assumed that the number of randomized units was the same in both treatments, eliminating one round trip in respect of the mass treatment of children. This would have decreased the costs only in the wards where mass treatment was effected, again making the difference appear larger. These three changes in assumptions would all have made mass treatment relatively less expensive.
Differences in personnel costs should be interpreted cautiously. One of the wards in the targeted household treatment was the first to be visited in the study. On that occasion the hospital provided extra support, leading to inordinately high wages. Another village where targeted household treatment took place required a third examination site and the ward members were particularly difficult to keep in order. In the absence of similar effects in the mass treatment wards the targeted household treatment wards were at a disadvantage. Variation in costs among the wards in the targeted household treatment was more substantial. However, even if all the costs per child in the inordinately expensive ward were decreased to the lowest observed levels in this treatment, the societal cost per child would still be higher for the targeted household treatment. A major reason for the difference in personnel costs is the need for trained personnel to conduct clinical examinations in the targeted household approach.
It is important to consider the magnitude of the differences in cost with respect to groups of wards rather than per child. Among a total of approximately 3300 children, each treatment included approximately 2600 who were treated or screened. To apply either treatment to the entire area under study would therefore imply treating about 5200 of 6600 children. At this rate the ward members opportunity costs would be approximately 1800 NPR (US$ 30) higher for the targeted household treatment, or less than 0.5 NPR per adult ward member. The public health programme sponsors extra costs for the targeted household treatment in an area this size would be approximately 56 NPR (US$ 1.10) per adult ward member. Adult ward members were the relevant denominator in this case for two reasons: ward members opportunity costs were based only on adult time and one method of financing a public health programme is to place a tax on adult productivity. The societal cost of mass treatment per one percentage point decrease in prevalence among 5200 children screened was 32 400 NPR (ca US$ 600).
The only large cost difference on a per child basis was the cost of azithromycin. This, in combination with the lack of adverse effects of azithromycin and the potential for drug resistance, suggests that mass treatment of children should remain the treatment of choice until other methods of distributing targeted treatment are devised and tested. Efforts to use health care resources most efficiently should focus on treating the group that is the reservoir for infection in order to decrease the prevalence of trachoma itself.
A cost-effectiveness analysis such as the one reported here can be an important tool in decision-making by health ministries facing tight budgetary constraints. The present analysis highlights the lack of a gain for the extra money that might be spent on a targeted trachoma control programme. The cost differences at the adult ward member level and the sponsor level in the absence of payment for azithromycin are quite small but the inclusion of the cost of azithromycin makes them substantial.
The ultimate goal of treating trachoma, i.e. to avoid blindness, should be kept in mind. Future research is needed to firmly establish the magnitude of the effect of decreasing the prevalence of active disease now on the prevalence of blindness later. Blindness may decrease both in the short run, i.e. if the development of trichiasis depends on persons with scarring being subjected to continued infection (22), and in the long run. By modelling the complete effect of changes in the prevalence of trachoma, more information can be obtained on the overall cost-effectiveness of efforts to control the disease.
The project described in this paper received generous support from the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation and Helen Keller International. Part of K.F.s work on the project was funded by the International Trachoma Initiative. The research was conducted in full accordance with ethical principles, including the provisions of the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki (as revised at the 48th General Assembly, Somerset West, Republic of South Africa, October 1996) and those of the Nepal Netra Jyoti Sangh, the Committee on Human Research at the University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA and the Committee on Human Research at the Johns Hopkins University, School of Hygiene and Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA.
Coût-efficacité des mesures de lutte contre le trachome : comparaison entre le traitement sélectif des ménages et le traitement de masse des enfants
OBJECTIF: La présente étude compare le rapport coût-efficacité du traitement sélectif des ménages et du traitement de masse des enfants dans la partie la plus occidentale du Népal.
MÉTHODES: Lefficacité a été mesurée par le changement de prévalence du trachome, exprimé en pourcentage. Les mesures concernant les ressources comprenaient le temps consacré par le personnel au traitement, les transports, le temps passé par les sujets participant à létude à attendre le traitement, et la quantité dazithromycine utilisée. Les coûts relatifs au programme ont été calculés du point de vue de lorganisme parrainant le programme de santé publique, des sujets participant à létude, et de la société dans son ensemble.
RÉSULTATS: Des études antérieures navaient montré aucune différence statistiquement significative defficacité, et les travaux rapportés ici nont montré aucune différence significative au niveau du coût total en personnel et en transport par enfant de 1 à 10 ans, du temps total passé par les adultes à attendre, ou de la quantité dazithromycine utilisée par enfant. Cependant, le traitement de masse des enfants était légèrement plus efficace et utilisait moins de ressources par enfant de 1 à 10 ans que le traitement sélectif des ménages.
CONCLUSION: Quel que soit le point de vue adopté, le traitement de masse des enfants est au moins aussi efficace et pas plus coûteux que le traitement sélectif des ménages, bien que les différences ne soient pas statistiquement significatives. Des méthodes de ciblage moins coûteuses sont nécessaires pour améliorer le rapport coût-efficacité du traitement sélectif des ménages.
Eficacia con relación al costo de las medidas de lucha contra el tracoma: comparación del tratamiento de hogares determinados y el tratamiento masivo de niños
OBJETIVO: En el presente estudio se compara la eficacia con relación al costo del tratamiento de hogares seleccionados y el tratamiento masivo de niños en la parte más occidental de Nepal.
MÉTODOS: La eficacia se determinó como la variación porcentual de la prevalencia de tracoma. Como medidas de los recursos se emplearon el tiempo personal requerido para el tratamiento, el transporte, el tiempo que los participantes en el estudio tuvieron que esperar para recibir tratamiento, y la cantidad de azitromicina empleada. Los costos del programa se calcularon teniendo en cuenta las perspectivas del patrocinador del programa de salud pública, de los individuos estudiados y del conjunto de la sociedad.
RESULTADOS: Estudios anteriores no han revelado ninguna diferencia estadísticamente significativa en cuanto a la eficacia, y el presente trabajo no muestra diferencias importantes en lo que respecta a los costos de personal y transporte por niño de 1 a 10 años, el tiempo total de espera de los adultos, o la cantidad de azitromicina por niño. Sin embargo, el tratamiento masivo de los niños fue ligeramente más eficaz y requirió, por niño de 1 a 10 años, un menor uso de cada uno de esos recursos que el tratamiento de determinados hogares.
CONCLUSIONES: Desde todos los puntos de vista, el tratamiento masivo de los niños es como mínimo tan eficaz y no más oneroso que el tratamiento focalizado de hogares, pese a la ausencia de diferencias estadísticamente significativas. Hacen falta métodos de focalización más económicos para que el tratamiento selectivo de los hogares resulte más eficaz con relación al costo.
1. Muñoz B, West S. Trachoma: the forgotten cause of blindness. Epidemiological Reviews, 1997, 19: 205217. [ Links ]
2. Report of the First Meeting of the WHO Alliance for the Global Elimination of Trachoma. Geneva, World Health Organization, 1997 (unpublished document WHO/PBL/GET/97.1). [ Links ]
3. Vanghan D, Asbury T, Riordan-Eva P, eds. General Ophthalmology, 15th edit. Stamford, CT, Appleton & Lange, 1999. [ Links ]
4. Pokharel GP et al. Prevalence of blindness and cataract surgery in Nepal. British Journal of Ophthalmology, 1998, 82: 600605. [ Links ]
5. Brilliant G. The epidemiology of blindness in Nepal: report of the 1981 Nepal Blindness Survey. Chelsea, MI, Seva Foundation, 1988. [ Links ]
6. Osaki Holm S et al. Comparison of two azithromycin distribution strategies for trachoma. Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 2001, 79: 194200. [ Links ]
7. Ward M et al. Persisting inapparent chlamydial infection in a trachoma endemic community in the Gambia. Scandinavian Journal of Infectious Diseases. 1990, 69 (suppl): 137148. [ Links ]
8. Baral K et al. Reliability of clinical diagnosis in identifying infectious trachoma in a low-prevalence area of Nepal. Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 1999, 77: 461466. [ Links ]
9. Over M, Bertozzi S, Chin J. Guidelines for rapid estimation of the direct and indirect costs of HIV infection in a developing country. Health Policy, 1989, 11: 169186. [ Links ]
10. Jack W. Principles of health economics for developing countries. Washington, DC, World Bank, 1999. [ Links ]
11. Brent RJ, Cost-benefit analysis for developing countries. Cheltenham, England, Edward Elgar Publishers, 1998. [ Links ]
12. Gold MR et al., eds. Cost-effectiveness in health and medicine. New York, Oxford University Press, 1996. [ Links ]
13. Whitty CJ et al. Impact of community-based mass treatment for trachoma with oral azithromycin on general morbidity inGambian children. Pediatric Infectious Diseases Journal, 1999, 18: 955958. [ Links ]
14. Hopkins S. Clinical toleration and safety of azithromycin. American Journal of Medicine, 1991, 91: 40S45S. [ Links ]
15. Thylefors B et al. A simple system for the assessment of trachoma and its complications. Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 1987, 65: 477483. [ Links ]
16. World Bank. World development indicators 2000. New York, Oxford University Press, 2000: 123. [ Links ]
18. World factbook 1997. Washington, DC, Central Intelligence Agency, 1997. [ Links ]
19. World factbook 1998. Washington, DC, Central Intelligence Agency, 1998. [ Links ]
20. World factbook 1999. Washington, DC, Central Intelligence Agency, 2000. [ Links ]
21. 1999 drug topics red book. Montvale, NJ, Medical Economics, 1999. [ Links ]
22. Muñoz B et al. Incidence of trichiasis in a cohort of women with and without scarring. International Journal of Epidemiology, 1999, 28: 11671171. [ Links ]
1 Assistant Professor, Department of Health Policy and Management, School of Hygiene and Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, 624 N. Broadway, Room 606, Baltimore, MD 212051901, USA (email: firstname.lastname@example.org). Correspondence should be addressed to this author.
2 Assistant Professor, Department of Ophthalmology and Francis I. Proctor Foundation for Research in Ophthalmology, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA; and Director, WHO Collaborating Centre for the Prevention of Blindness, San Francisco, CA, USA.
3 Research Coordinator, Francis I. Proctor Foundation for Research in Ophthalmology, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA.
4 Hospital Director and Chief Ophthalmologist, Geta Eye Hospital, Geta, Nepal.
5 Ophthalmic Officer and Hospital Administrator, Geta Eye Hospital, Geta, Nepal.
6 Ophthalmic Officer, Geta Eye Hospital, Geta, Nepal.
Ref. No. 00-0954 |
A charming town in the Po Valley, in the province of Modena, whose history is closely intertwined with the one of its waterways: the channel Canale Naviglio and the rivers Secchia and Panaro. The village of Bomporto, in fact, developed around the tower of the lighthouse built in 1504 for the guidance of sailors and, thanks to its strategic location for river traffic between Modena, Venice and the Adriatic, in a short time acquired a certain importance . Although "Bomportum" is already mentioned in a document of 1408, it acquired its own autonomy only in 1602. In the second half of the XVIII century Francesco II d'Este ordered the building of a larger dock. In 1815 the municipality was suppressed and the town became a district of the city of Modena until 1859, when it re-established its autonomy and in globed within its borders the districts of Sorbara and Solara.
Sites of Interest:
- the Parish Church, whose porch reminds the features of an ancient Roman villas. It was built in 1609 and dedicated to St. Nicholas of Bari Inside the church features a valuable painting of Begarelli, which dates back to 1550;
- the Town Hall, whose board room features a series of painting inspired to the Italian Risorgimento;
- the Darsena or dock (also called Conca), built in the late XVIII century by the Commissioner of the time, Francesco Zannini engineer on request of Francesco II d'Este, of which, still today, it is possible to admire the "Vinciane" gates, constructed to allow the blocking of the flow of the Channel on the river Panaro, when it exceeds a certain level. The gate door works automatically and is based on a hydraulic principle studied by Leonardo da Vinci;
- the district of Sorbara, known for its beautiful stretches of vineyards that produce an excellent Lambrusco wine. Here is located also the Romanesque church of San Vincenzo, already mentioned in 816. After the battle of 1084 it was destroyed and Matilda of Canossa had the church rebuilt and entitled it to Santa Agnese;
- the several noble villas located in the area. |
The last two years have seen a strong migration to online channels as well as an increasing confidence across all age groups with digital channels and devices. WT Commerce’s independent Future Shopper survey confirms:
- 60% of global shoppers will increase their usage of digital shopping channels in the future
- 35% of all online shopping globally is via marketplaces
- 65% of consumers have already bought through social media platforms
To support brands in their execution across all online channels, we offer a world-class suite of Commerce Execution services across each channel, seamlessly connecting the strategy and the execution. |
It's difficult to find an area of scientific research where deep learning isn't discussed as the next big thing. Claims abound: deep learning will spot cancers; it will unravel complex protein structures; it will reveal new exoplanets in previously-analyzed data; it will even discover a theory of everything. Knowing what's real and what's just hype isn't always easy.
One promising—perhaps even overlooked—area of research in which deep learning is likely to make its mark is microscopy. In spite of new discoveries, the underlying workflow of techniques such as scanning probe microscopy (SPM) and scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) has remained largely unchanged for decades. Skilled human operators must painstakingly set up, observe, and analyze samples. Deep learning has the potential to not only automate many of the tedious tasks, but also dramatically speed up the analysis time by homing in on microscopic features of interest.
"People usually just look at the image and they identify a few properties of interest," says Maxim Ziatdinov, a researcher at Oak Ridge National Lab in Tennessee. "They basically discard most of the information, because there is just no way to actually extract all the features of interest from the data." With deep learning, Ziatdinov says that it's possible to extract information about the position and type of atomic structures (that would otherwise escape notice) in seconds, opening up a vista of possibilities.
It's a twist on the classical dream of doing more with smaller things (most famously expressed in Richard Feynman's "There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom"). Instead of using hardware to improve the resolution of microscopes, software could expand their role in the lab by making them autonomous. "Such a machine will 'understand' what it is looking at and automatically document features of interest," an article in the Materials Research Society Bulletin declares. "The microscope will know what various features look like by referencing databases, or can be shown examples on-the-fly."
Despite its micro- prefix, microscopy techniques such as SPM and STEM actually deal with objects on the nano- scale, including individual atoms. In SPM, a nanoscale tip hovers over the sample's surface and, like a record player, traces its grooves. The result is a to an visual image instead of an audio signal. On the other hand, STEM generates an image by showering a sample with electrons and collecting those which pass through, essentially creating a negative.
Both microscopy techniques allow researchers to quickly observe the broad structural features of a sample. Researchers like Ziatdinov are interested in the functional properties of certain features such as defects. By applying a stimulus like an electric field to a sample, they can measure how it responds. They can also use the sample's reactions to the applied stimuli to build a functional map of the sample.
With automation, researchers could make measurements that have never been accessible.
But taking functional data takes time. Zooming in on a structural image to take functional data is time-prohibitive, and human operators have to make educated guesses about which features they are hoping to analyze. There hasn't been a rigorous way to predict functionality from structure, so operators have simply had to get a knack for picking good features. In other words, the cutting edge of microscopy is just as much art as it is science.
The hope is that this tedious feature-picking can be outsourced to a neural network that predicts features of interest and navigates to them, dramatically speeding up the process.
Automated microscopy is still at the proof-of-concept stage, with a few groups of researchers around the world hammering out the principles and doing preliminary tests. Unlike many areas of deep learning, success here would not be simply automating preexisting measurements; with automation, researchers could make measurements that have heretofore been impossible.
Ziatdinov and his colleagues have already made some progress toward such a future. For years, they sat on microscopy data that would reveal details about graphene—a few frames that showed a defect creating strain in the atomically thin material. "We couldn't analyze it, because there's just no way that you can extract positions of all the atoms," Ziatdinov says. But by training a neural net on the graphene, they were able to categorize newly recognized structures on the edges of defects.
Microscopy isn't just limited to observing. By blasting samples with a high energy electron beam, researchers can shift the position of atoms, effectively creating an "atomic forge." As with a conventional billows-and-iron forge, automation could make things a lot easier. An atomic forge guided by deep learning could spot defects and fix them, or nudge atoms into place to form intricate structures—around the clock, without human error, sweat, or tears.
"If you actually want to have a manufacturing capability, just like with any other kind of manufacturing, you need to be able to automate it," he says.
Ziatdinov is particularly interested in applying automated microscopy to quantum devices, like topological qubits. Efforts to reliably create these qubits have not proven successful, but Ziatdinov thinks he might have the answer. By training a neural network to understand the functions associated with specific features, deep learning could unlock which atomic tweaks are needed to create a topological qubit—something humans clearly haven't quite figured out.
Benchmarking exactly how far we are from a future where autonomous microscopy helps build quantum devices isn't easy. There are few human operators in the entire world, so it's difficult to compare deep learning results to a human average. It's also unclear which obstacles will pose the biggest problems moving forward in a domain where the difference of a few atoms can be decisive.
Researchers are also applying deep learning to microscopy on other scales. Confocal microscopy, which operates at a scale thousands of times larger than SPM and STEM, is an essential technique that gives biologists a window into cells. By integrating new hardware with deep learning software, a team at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass., dramatically improved the resolution of images taken from a variety of samples such as cardiac tissue in mice and cells in fruit fly wings. Critically, deep learning allowed the researchers to use much less of light for imaging, reducing damage to the samples.
The conclusion reached by a recent review of the prospects for autonomous microscopy is that it "will enable fundamentally new opportunities and paradigms for scientific discovery. "But it came with the caveat that "this process is likely to be highly nontrivial." Whether deep learning lives up to its promise on the microscopic frontier remains, literally, to be seen.
This article appears in the January 2022 print issue as "Navigating the Nanoscale."
- Marvin Minsky's Legacy of Students and Ideas - IEEE Spectrum ›
- Shedding New Light on Disease Pathogenesis, Birth Defects - IEEE ... ›
- Deep Learning Reinvents the Hearing Aid - IEEE Spectrum ›
- Deep Learning's Diminishing Returns - IEEE Spectrum ›
Dan Garisto is a freelance science journalist who covers physics and other physical sciences. His work has appeared in Scientific American, Physics, Symmetry, Undark, and other outlets. |
Gaming bugs can be deadly for any game development firm; however, the bugs that have resulted in the opposite, making the company famous. Regardless of the cases, it is unlikely that users will relish such issues as they could hamper gamers’ experience.
Games such as Lost Ark are inclined to bugs due to their size. MMOs comprise so many flimsy moving parts that keeping the fundamental elements in balance and working is nearly impossible. Many players have discovered an apparent glitch in Her Majesty’s Secret Hidden Story. But the “glitch” comes down to an unintentional misunderstanding and some trickery by the creators. As Lost Ark has a ‘Her Majesty’s secret 3’ bug, here are the details you need to learn to dodge the bugs other players have experienced.
How can you avoid Her Majesty’s Secret 3 bug in Lost Ark?
In ‘Her Majesty’s Secret’ players has to visit investigative spots in the Fesnar Hills area of North Vern. As we explained in our guide to the Hidden Story, players must visit three investigative spots the queen visited on her journey through the region to complete ‘Her Majesty’s Secret Hidden Story.’ It is believed that the Secret 3 bug appears when players see the third point and find that it’s not appropriately spawned.
The challenge in this quest starts from the secret 2/3, where a bogus spot is present closely with the correct one on the left side not too far. Players interacting with the wrong Investigative spot could divert them from advancing the quest. As you can see in the image above, two books/investigation spots exist to interact. Investigative spot 1 is a fake; if you interact with that Investigative spot, it will show you the message mentions;
”A mountain, an animal, the sea, a child doodled on this paper. Looking at it, I feel warm inside. There may be more notes around here.”
Instead, go to investigative spot 2, and investigate; it will deliver the following message shown in the image below. After that you will advance to secret 3/3 to correctly complete it.
The ‘Her Majesty’s Secret 3’ bug in Lost Ark is caused by players recognizing the wrong investigative spot at secret 2/3. Going through the correct spot to progress throughout the Hidden Story is crucial. If not, the third investigative spot, found inside the Ancient Elveria dungeon, won’t appear, and you’ll have to begin the process again. |
National Item Identification Number
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An open-or close-coiled spring, wound in various forms and from different shapes and types of materials and finished at the ends, so designed to provide resistance to pulling forces. The close-coiled springs may incorporate the special feature of initial tension created between the coils when wound so that an initial load must be applied to separate them. Excludes SPRING, REINFORCING, HOSE.
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Everyone believes people needs 8 hours of sleep. That’s what we were told when we were kids. In fact, everyone except babies and toddlers are expected to stick to this completely arbitrary number of sleeping hours. It is no surprise we’re all deep in sleep debt. We just can’t seem to stay on top of our days!
Misconceptions abound about sleep and healthy sleeping routines. But there are facts one can rely on, obtained scientifically. The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute carries a detailed guide on their website about how much need one needs to function optimally. The statistics come from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, and are endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics. It also has a neat note about sleep debt, what it is and how you can calculate it.
But before we jump to the statistics, let us quickly go through factors that may cause/need you to deviate from the recommended or your usual hours of sleep.
What causes changes in sleep requirements?
Nobody is immune from stress. In fact, stress is an unrecognized epidemic in contemporary times. A little bit of stress can do good to the body, but a lot of stress throws the entire system off rhythm.
One major way the human body neutralises stress is via sleep. Anecdotally, you might discover people sleeping in on their most important days of school or work, as well as days they take big decisions in their social or emotional lives. A high stress situation may cause you to lose sleep as well, or have less restful sleep even if it lasts your usual number of hours. This can influence your sleep debt.
Some medication can cause drowsiness. Medicines containing opioids, alcohol or other such substances are held directly responsible for tiredness and feelings of languidity that may follow consumption. Then, there are medication that can cause you to stay awake or have a less restful sleep. The effect of reduced sleep can also be felt as higher amount of stress one may have to deal with. This makes it essential to stem debt before it grows to an inconvenient size.
Mental debilitation like depression and anxiety have been linked to erratic sleep patterns. Keeping aside the stress that plays a major role in how things play out in these conditions, whether or not they may be curable, patients often report feeling tired and drained throughout their day, no matter how much they sleep. It might not indicate a sleep debt if someone suffering from a mental illness feels drowsy, and it may be healthy to sleep longer than other people. However, when it comes to such illnesses, things are more complicated than how much one sleeps. A psychologist or trained medical professional’s advice should be given topmost priority to seek as well as to follow.
The body drains quickly when it is recovering from an illness or trying to fight off an oncoming one. That’s why people prefer to sleep in when they’re down with the flu. There is no absolute number on hours one is allowed to add to their sleep schedule either. Sleep till you wake up on your own, accruing no sleep debt.
Intake of various foods can aid or hamper sleep. Coffee, for example, is well known for giving a boost to the brain and making it feel energised even when you’re tired. Therefore, coffee is one among the several foods that are best avoided right before sleep. Of the other hand, warm milk contains tryptophan which can help one sleep. It joins other foods like the humble banana in the list of foods that can make one sleep better.
There is another aspect of food one must consider. Your digestive system behaves differently when you’re asleep. Your stomach works slower. Acid reflux and other such inconveniences are therefore common. You can be robbed of restful sleep by the short bursts on acrid stomach acid in your mouth. Eating a diet that is quick to digest at night, coupled with an hour or two of activity after the evening meal can better your chances of restful sleep.
The final criteria is one we have discussed often on this blog and website, which is bedroom environment. If your brightly painted walls catch the morning sun and startle your eyes out of slumber, it is upsetting. Kids get cranky on wetting the bed, and therefore a rubber sheet to prevent the mattress from soaking the liquid of getting a decent hypoallergenic, easy to clean kids mattress can make them rest a lot more peacefully through the night.
How much you (and your kids) need to sleep according to age
Recommended Amount of Sleep
|Infants aged 4-12 months||12-16 hours a day (including naps)|
|Children aged 1-2 years||11-14 hours a day (including naps)|
|Children aged 3-5 years||10-13 hours a day (including naps)|
|Children aged 6-12 years||9-12 hours a day|
|Teens aged 13-18 years||8-10 hours a day|
|Adults aged 18 years or older||7–8 hours a day|
Infants (upto 1 year) : 12-16 hours every day
Infants are the sleepiest of the lot. And for good reason. Their brains are developing at a phenomenal rate, and all that hustle bustle in the head takes up energy. Infants need to be put down to rest every few hours, and it is essential to not keep them awake when they’re sleepy or they’ll get overtired. An overtired infant becomes cranky, because even though they’re tired, they can’t put themselves to sleep.
If you as a parent need your kid to sleep peacefully through the night, you can gradually condition the infant to sleep later at night so they wake up closer to the morning when you’re going to get up anyway.
Toddlers (1 to 2 years) : 11-14 hours every day
As babies grow and their brains begin to settle down in terms of rate of development, there is less tiredness. And as they begin to waddle into the world, their appetite for new experience causes them to be forever energetic and eager to explore. Despite that, toddlers need their sleep. As kids grow older, they can become fussy sleepers. Putting them to sleep can be a task, but their growing body and brain both need it.
Pre-school kids (3 to 5 years) : 10 – 13 hours every day
In my experience, pre-schoolers are the most difficult to put to sleep. They are almost never tired, and they always want another bedtime story, another snack, another glass of water. It can be frustrating, but it is important to be patient with your kids at this stage. It is also essential to have a degree of strictness, since pre-school kids can find themselves up and eager to run about the moment the sun comes up, not caring about how much rest they’re getting.
Pre-teens (6 – 12 years) : 9 – 12 hours a day
Kids between 6 and 12 years of age are fairly straightforward to figure out. They need to be sent to school, helped through homework and lavished with love. Kids at this age learn about social complexities with new relationships as friends, students and more. Their sleep requirements are slowly nearing those of the average adult, but they’re not quite there yet.
Teens (13 – 18 years) : 8 -10 hours a day
Teens often crave being treated like adults, but as far as their bodies go, they are yet to become adults. The spurt of hormones in the blood following the onset of puberty brings about a host of changes to their bodies as well as brains, as everyone knows. This ups their sleep requirements too. A teenager sleeping in is not bad. However, too much sleep (going beyond 10 hours consistently for quite a few days together) shouldn’t be taken lightly. It may signify a problem, be it physical, mental or social. It is wise to talk to your teen about it, or visit a counselor.
Adults : 7 – 8 hours a day
Adults are commonly advised to rest 8 hours, and while that is adequate for many, if not most, there is certainly nothing to worry about if you need a little less or more sleep to feel comfortable and well rested. All the factors we discussed earlier may be used to understand why you’re sleeping differently than you used to or compared to others. It may also be prudent to visit a medical professional if you feel the need to. Problems such as sleep apnea, acid reflux and backache may reduce quality of sleep.
Elderly (beyond 60) : 8 – 9 hours a day
As people grow older, they tend to be a little more tired than usual. This is completely normal, and it can be prudent to change your expectation of sleeping for the exact amount you slept when you were 25. Anywhere between one to two hours of sleep may be needed in addition to the amount you slept when you were younger. |
Tetanus Toxoid Adsorbed
"Thanks to effective vaccine, the United States has been polio-free since 1979. But poliovirus is still a threat in some countries. Be part of the success story and get your child vaccinated on schedule.
Polio, or poliomyelitis, is an in"...
Tetanus Toxoid Adsorbed
This product contains dry natural latex rubber as follows: The stopper to the vial contains dry natural latex rubber.
Persons who experienced Arthus-type hypersensitivity reactions or a temperature of > 103°F ( > 39.4°C) following a prior dose of tetanus toxoid usually have high serum tetanus antitoxin levels and should not be given even emergency doses of Tetanus Toxoid Adsorbed more frequently than every 10 years, even if they have a wound that is neither clean nor minor.1
A routine booster should not be given more frequently than every ten years. (This guideline should not preclude wound management considerations.)
Care is to be taken by the health-care provider for the safe and effective use of Tetanus Toxoid Adsorbed vaccine.
EPINEPHRINE INJECTION (1:1000) MUST BE IMMEDIATELY AVAILABLE SHOULD AN ACUTE ANAPHYLACTIC REACTION OCCUR DUE TO ANY COMPONENT OF THE VACCINE.
There is an increased incidence of local and systemic reactions to booster doses of tetanus toxoid when given to previously immunized persons. (Refer to DOSAGE AND ADMINISTRATION section for timing of booster injections.) Prior to an injection of any vaccine, all known precautions should be taken to prevent adverse reactions. This should include a review of the patient's history with respect to possible sensitivity and any previous adverse reactions (see CONTRAINDICATIONS section) to the vaccine or similar vaccines and to possible sensitivity to dry natural latex rubber, and a current knowledge of the literature concerning the use of the vaccine under consideration.
Special care should be taken to ensure that the injection does not enter a blood vessel.
Immunosuppressive therapies including radiation, corticosteroids, antimetabolites, alkylating agents, and cytotoxic drugs may reduce the immune response to vaccines. Therefore, routine vaccination should be deferred, if possible, while patients are receiving such therapy.1 If Tetanus Toxoid Adsorbed vaccine has been administered to persons receiving immunosuppressive therapy, or having an immunodeficiency disorder, an adequate antibody response may not be obtained.1 When possible, immunosuppressive treatment should be interrupted when immunization is required due to a tetanus-prone wound.
It is advisable to use DT (For Pediatric Use – under 7 years of age) or Td (For Adult Use – 7 years of age and older) in wound prophylaxis instead of tetanus toxoid alone in order to maintain adequate levels of diphtheria immunity.1
A separate, sterile syringe and needle or a sterile disposable unit must be used for each patient to prevent transmission of hepatitis or other infectious agents from person to person. Needles should not be recapped and should be disposed of according to biohazard waste guidelines.
Carcinogenesis, Mutagenesis, Impairment of Fertility
No studies have been performed to evaluate carcinogenicity, mutagenic potential, or impact on fertility.
Reproductive Studies – Pregnancy Category C
Animal reproduction studies have not been conducted with Tetanus Toxoid Adsorbed vaccine. It is also not known whether Tetanus Toxoid Adsorbed vaccine can cause fetal harm when administered to a pregnant woman or can affect reproduction capacity. Tetanus Toxoid Adsorbed vaccine should be given to a pregnant woman only if clearly needed.
Adequate immunization by routine boosters in non-pregnant women of child-bearing age can obviate the need to vaccinate women during pregnancy (see DOSAGE AND ADMINISTRATION section).
Physicians generally avoid prescribing unnecessary drugs and biologics for pregnant women.
However, the ACIP recommends the following: A previously unvaccinated pregnant woman whose child might be born under unhygienic circumstances (without sterile technique) should receive two doses of Td 4 to 8 weeks apart before delivery, preferably during the last two trimesters. Pregnant women in similar circumstances who have not had a complete vaccination series should complete the three-dose series. Those vaccinated more than 10 years previously should have a booster dose. No evidence exists to indicate that tetanus and diphtheria toxoids administered during pregnancy are teratogenic.1
It has been reported that tetanus toxoid administered to pregnant women prevents neonatal tetanus in newborns.11,12 However, the data reported on the safety of tetanus toxoid when so used is inconclusive because the incidence of neonatal deaths in New Guinea was significantly higher than in the United States.11 A prospective study in the United States has not been done to confirm these reports.
SAFETY AND EFFECTIVENESS OF TETANUS TOXOID ADSORBED VACCINE IN INFANTS BELOW THE AGE OF SIX WEEKS HAVE NOT BEEN ESTABLISHED. HOWEVER, THIS VACCINE IS NOT INDICATED FOR CHILDREN UNDER 7 YEARS OF AGE.
Tetanus Toxoid Adsorbed vaccine is suitable for tetanus immunization in the pediatric age group. However, for children under 7 years of age DT (For Pediatric Use) is preferred to tetanus toxoid alone if the pertussis component is contraindicated. For children 7 years of age and older, Td (For Adult Use) is preferred to tetanus toxoid alone.1
1. Recommendations of the Immunization Practices Advisory Committee (ACIP). Diphtheria, Tetanus, and Pertussis: Recommendations for vaccine use and other preventive measures. MMWR 40: No. RR-10, 1991
6. Stratton KR, et al. Adverse events associated with childhood vaccines. Evidence Bearing on Causality. National Academy Press, Washington, DC, 1994
7. ACIP. General recommendations on immunization. MMWR 38: 205-227, 1989
11. MacLennan R, et al. Immunization against neonatal tetanus in New Guinea. Antitoxin response of pregnant women to adjuvant and plain toxoids. Bull WHO 32: 683-697, 1965
12. Newell KW, et al. The use of toxoid for the prevention of tetanus neonatorium. Bull WHO 35: 863-871, 1966This monograph has been modified to include the generic and brand name in many instances.
Last reviewed on RxList: 1/13/2009
Additional Tetanus Toxoid Adsorbed Information
Tetanus Toxoid Adsorbed - User Reviews
Report Problems to the Food and Drug Administration
You are encouraged to report negative side effects of prescription drugs to the FDA. Visit the FDA MedWatch website or call 1-800-FDA-1088.
Find out what women really need. |
I have an Android application ready made This is the link to it :
[url removed, login to view]
I want the following :
- Remove the Add Channel Function to users and make me only be able to
add the channels.
- Remove the videos tab and keep the playlist tab.
- On video Play remove the maximise button in a way that user cannot
hide the Ads.
- Add more Interstatial (Big Ads in the application).
Please type YOUTUBE before bidding so i know you read the requirements. |
During the recent Sagrantino Cup event I created daily trajectory forecasts with the windy.com traj plugin for the morning flights and asked pilots to share actual GPS tracks so I could compare actual versus forecast. Here is one example:
The KML file for this screenshot is available here, and it is instructive to play with it – have a look at it yourself in Google Earth.
- Most of the flight was between 800m and 1000m altitude, so I selected the 2000ft (amber), 2500ft (red) and 3000ft (blue) trajectories.
- The ECMWF model had the best match, so only ECMWF forecasts are shown.
- The flight started on the valley floor, within an inversion and a slight northerly flow.
- The match is excellent – especially with the 2500ft trajectory, and the descent phases around 11km and 15km into the flight show the northeasterly flow forecast by the amber line.
- As to be expected, the track is shorter than the forecast – slightly more than half the distance.
- my gut feeling after comparing several forecasts to tracks: ECMWF wind speed forecasts are a tad on the high side.
Here is a second example:
- trajectory colors: red: 2500ft, blue: 3000ft, purple: 5000ft
- most of the flight was 1000-1200m altitude
- the track’s match with the 3000ft trajectories (all models) again is very good! |
Now that you’ve learned what formative assessment is, why you should use formative assessment in your classroom, and six practical tips, it’s time to take what you’ve learned and apply it to your class.
These five formative assessment activities can be used across content areas to quickly gather information in regards to how well your students are mastering content or concepts.
Use this activity to assess individual students’ understanding of the lesson or a particular focus skill. Give your students approximately 3 minutes to write a summary of the day’s learning/lesson.
Next, ask them to highlight or circle 10 words or phrases that best represent the learning. (If a student doesn’t have that many, ask them to choose 5 or so.)
Lastly, students take those chosen words and write a one sentence summary using the words.
This activity also gauges individual students’ understanding of the lesson or a particular focus skill.
Give each student an index card or ½ sheet of paper, or use our 3-2-1 summarizer sheet.
Ask students to write 3 things they learned.
Ask students to write 2 things they found interesting.
Ask students to write 1 question they still have about the lesson or topic.
Use the fishbowl activity to evaluate your classroom’s understanding of the lesson and find out what further explanation is needed.
Give each student an index card or ½ sheet of paper. Each student writes a question about the lesson or topic. It might be something to which they do or do not know the answer. (No names are added.)
Put all questions into a container, such as a fish bowl. Have your students’ pair up and give each pair two questions. Pairs then discuss possible answers and write an answer on the back. (They may leave it blank if they do not know an answer.)
Once completed, all papers go back in the container. Pull as many index cards as time permits. Read the question and answer. Students respond with a thumbs up or down. Have your class decide on the correct answer and tell them if a correct answer isn’t on the card.
This activity evaluates students’ (individuals and whole group) understanding of the lesson and also helps you discover what further explanation is needed.
- Think – tell students to ponder a question or look for an example of a given skill in their writing.
- Pair students up – students discuss their answer or share their writing.During this step students may wish to revise or alter their original idea or revise their writing with the skill in mind.
- Share – a few students are called upon to share with the rest of the class.
(Assessment occurs as you walk around listening to the discussions as well as during the sharing portion. It is important to circulate and hold students accountable for their discussions.)
Dry Erase Boards
Use this activity for any number of skill checks and to assess individual students’ understanding of the lesson or a particular focus skill. For example, tell students a simple sentence to write on their boards, e.g. “The children run.
Then direct your students to revise the sentence using any grammar skill you would like to assess.
Examples: Revise by adding an adjective or adverb. Revise by changing run to a stronger verb. Change the word children to a noun with a regular plural. Change the word children and use proper nouns instead. Change children to a pronoun. Expand the sentence and make it compound. Use a simile to explain how fast the children run.
You can quickly check around the classroom to note who has mastered the skill and who has not. |
A body was projected vertically upwards at 9.1 meters per second. Determine the time taken to reach the maximum height. Take 𝑔 equal to 9.8 metres per second squared.
In order to solve this question, we will use one of the equations of motion or SUVAT equations: 𝑣 equals 𝑢 plus 𝑎𝑡, where 𝑢 is the initial velocity, 𝑣 is the final velocity, 𝑎 is the acceleration, and 𝑡 is equal to the time. The body is projected vertically upwards at 9.1 meters per second. This means that 𝑢 is equal to 9.1. At the maximum height, the velocity of the body is zero metres per second. Therefore, 𝑣 is equal to zero. As gravity is working against the body, 𝑎 is equal to negative 9.8 metres per second squared. And finally, 𝑡 is the value we’re trying to calculate.
Substituting in these values into the equation 𝑣 equals 𝑢 plus 𝑎𝑡 gives us zero is equal to 9.1 minus 9.8𝑡. Rearranging this equation gives us 9.8𝑡 is equal to 9.1. Dividing both sides of the equation by 9.8 gives us a value for 𝑡 of 9.1 divided by 9.8. This is equal to 13 14ths of a second or 0.93 seconds to two decimal places.
This means that the time taken for a body to reach its maximum height if it is projected vertically upwards at 9.1 meters per second is 13 14ths of a second. |
GPS is one such example. Some of us can’t imagine going out of town without it. What you might not know is that while that GPS device tells you where to turn left, it is also storing where you go in its memory. Scotland Yard has started using this data to solve crimes:
Scotland Yard analysis of the [GPS] devices has helped solve dozens of investigations into kidnappings, grooming of children, murder and terrorism. Information about a suspect’s whereabouts at particular times, their journeys and addresses of associates can all be discovered – if they have been using a GPS. The devices retain hundreds of records of locations and routes in their memory.
So all you criminals out there, make sure you use GPS whenever possible. We all know your actions are a desperate cry for attention. |
A well-maintained lawn can be the joy and pride of the homeowner. Not only does the lawn look good but can also help increase the value of the property. There is a fair amount of effort that goes into maintaining a lush green lawn. Overdoing or underdoing any of these activities can damage your beautiful green patch. We at Certified Landscape Construction ensure that your lawn is maintained well and at a reasonable price.
Some of the main aspects that we undertake with our Lawn Maintenance are:
It is ideal to water the lawn heavily when needed, instead of watering the lawn lightly and frequently. Watering the lawn lightly won’t yield the desired results as the water may not make it into the soil and nurture the roots. Also, when watering lightly, you must factor the atmospheric evaporation of the water.
When watering the lawn, it is best to water it enough to soak six to eight inches deep. This will help the roots to run deeper into the soil. Watering recommendations can vary based on different types of soil. However, it is best to water until you see the water approximately an inch above the surface of the ground. The ideal time to water the lawn is early in the morning. There is less evaporation in the morning, compared to the afternoon. Also, watering in the morning will help regulate the temperature of the lawn as the day progresses and the temperature rises. We ensure that we use the best watering practices when we water your lawn.
Mowing helps reduce the workload on the root system of the grass plant. If the culm above the ground is large, it will naturally require more nutrients and water from the roots. A smaller culm places fewer burdens on the roots. Mowing encourages the expansion of the grass plant. When the grass leaves are cut down, the plant grows new leaves for the absorption of sunlight. Growth of new leaves helps make the lawn healthy, thicker and denser. A healthy lawn has better resistance to disease and weeds.
Through the growing season, we at Certified Landscape Construction ensure that we mow the lawn frequently. We avoid cutting off more than one-third of the leaf of the grass plant while mowing. Losing its ability to photosynthesize all of a sudden may not be good for the health of the grass plant. The shade from the grass plant will also help keep the soil cool. We keep varying the mowing pattern. For example, we push the mower from North-South for a week or two and then switch to mowing from East-West for a week or two. When using a mulching mower, we leave in the grass clippings after mowing. These clippings help fertilize the lawn.
We at Certified Landscape Construction also undertake periodic maintenance that includes:
Fertilizing the lawn adds essential nutrients to the soil, which are in turn provided to the grass. Regular mowing helps the grass grow quickly. This means it will require more nutrients compared to an average plant. We use natural fertilizers like manure and compost. Using water-soluble fertilizer acts directly on the leaves. Hence we opt for slow-acting granular fertilizer instead. We use granular fertilizer which will gradually release the nutrients over a period of several months. This will help strengthen the root structure of the grass plant and make it resistant to weeds and resilient to drought. We ensure that the lawn soil is fertilized at least two times a year.
The soil in the lawn tends to get compacted over time. This prevents oxygen from reaching through to the microbes that help break down the organic matter which enriches the soil. To ensure good health of your lawn, we aerate (opening the compacted soil) the soil periodically.
Soil can be aerated manually or with power core-aerators. Aerating the soil involves removing small sections of soil, thus forming shallow holes. Organic material, water, and Air spread into the earth through these holes and help revitalize the soil. In case there is heavy traffic of footfalls on the lawn, the soil can get severely compacted. We then aerate the lawn every fall.
In the lawn, it is natural that material will gather around the base of grass plants. Contrary to popular belief, Thatch does not comprise clippings of mown grass. Grass clippings generally break down within a week or so. Thatch comprises crowns and culms that have worn off or died naturally.
Thatch collection in a small amount is useful as it blocks evaporation and helps water conservation in the soil. However, a heavy build-up of thatch (more than 1/4th of an inch in thickness) will prevent the water and air from reaching the soil. This can impact the overall health of the soil and grass plants. If the build-up of thatch on the lawn is too thick, we remove it with a rake or a de-thatcher.
Questions? Interested in getting lawn maintenance for your yard? Contact us to discus your yard maintenance needs! |
What is osteoporosis?
Osteoporosis is a health condition that weakens bones, making them fragile and more likely to break. The condition, which affects over 3 million people in the UK, develops slowly over several years and is often only diagnosed when a fall or sudden impact causes a bone to break (fracture).
Why is physical activity important for osteoporosis?
If you're looking to reduce your risk of developing osteoporosis or manage your current condition, regular physical activity is essential.
Keeping active helps to improve your overall cardiovascular fitness, strength, balance and bone density, which reduces your risk of developing the condition. If you have already been diagnosed with osteoporosis and weak bones, physical activity is extremely important because keeping active is one of the best ways you can reduce your risk of falls and fractures. It can also help to reduce pain.
If you have been diagnosed with osteoporosis, you may be fearful of taking part in exercise. But if you stop moving, you'll slowly lose strength and balance which will make you even more prone to falls and bone breaks.
How much physical activity should you be doing?
In order to reduce your risk of developing osteoporosis or manage your current condition, you should aim to take part in the recommended amount of physical activity for your age group, as outlined in the UK Chief Medical Officer's Physical Activity Guidelines.
For adults aged 19 and over, the recommended amount is at least 150 minutes of moderate intensity physical activity per week. Where possible, this should be a combination of cardiovascular, strength, flexibility and balance exercises. These could include:
- Cardiovascular activities - brisk walking, cycling, swimming, dancing
- Strength activities - resistance training, Yoga, Nordic Walking, carrying heavy shopping, heavy gardening
- Balance/mobility - Yoga, Pilates, Tai Chi, body balance classes
Weight-bearing exercises and resistance exercises are particularly important for helping to preventing osteoporosis as these types of exercises both help to improve bone density.
- Weight-bearing exercises - weight-bearing exercises are exercises where your feet and legs support your weight. Examples of these include walking, running, skipping, dancing, aerobics and even jumping up and down on the spot. These are all extremely useful ways to strength your muscles, ligaments and joints.
- Resistance exercises - resistance exercises are exercises that use muscle strength. Examples of these include press-ups, weightlifting or using weight equipment at a gym.
If you have already been diagnosed with osteoporosis, you may need to avoid some types of high-impact exercises (e.g. running and jumping) as these could increase your risk of fracture. Instead, you should aim to take part in activities that help reduce your risk of falls and fractures. Recommended exercises for osteoporosis include:
- Tai Chi
- Flexibility exercises
- Chair-based exercises
- Low-impact dancing
- Low-impact aerobics
- Cross-training machines
You may also be able to find an exercise referral scheme in your area that caters specifically for people with osteoporosis. |
The image above depicts a clever trick played on battlefields during World War II: Bobbing next to a sturdy metal tank is a rubber inflatable copy meant to fool enemies. An army could look twice as large as it was thanks to elite divisions of the military that specialized in the art of decoys and deception.
Military units within both the Allied and Axis forces practiced and deployed an assortment of peculiar, yet effective tactics, from building inflated dummy tanks to constructing wooden artillery and straw airplanes. A fleet of dummy tanks could lead an enemy to overestimate a force’s actual strength or draw an attack away from a vulnerable area, explained Gordon Rottman in World War II Tactical Camouflage Techniques.
“Decoys are extremely important in deception planning,” stated an U.S. army field manual published in 1978. Something as simple as “a log sticking out of a pile of brush can draw a lot of attention and artillery fire.”
New photos uncovered by the National Archives reveal the elaborate artistry behind building a “fake army.” The featured photos taken between 1942 and 1945 depict the variety of creative deception tactics developed by the Japanese, German, and British military.
During both World Wars, artists, filmmakers, scientists, and sculptors were handpicked by the military and called upon to use their visual and creative skills to design camouflage and decoys. Beginning in World War I, artists used “dazzle camouflage” and painted battleships with odd, multicolored patterns to distract far-off enemies, while female art students designed camouflage “rock” suits that they tested in Van Cortlandt Park in New York.
The United States recruited over a thousand men from art schools and ad agencies for the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops, or “Ghost Army,” which staged more than 20 battlefield deceptions between 1944 and 1945. In England, a group of surrealist artists started the Industrial Camouflage Research Unit just after the war began in September 1939, wrote Peter Forbes in Dazzled and Deceived: Mimicry and Camouflage.
The dummies took on many forms, including stationary structures that supplied the outline of machinery and a simulation that was mounted on a truck. Inventions could be simple and crude, such as stacking up old tires and propping up a log to simulate an artillery piece, explained Kenneth Blanks in his thesis on tactical decoys.
On the other hand, some deceptions were large-scale, such as fake roads and bridges made out of canvas and burlap. At a distance, the elaborate dummy tanks could easily be confused for the real thing. They were made of an assortment of canvas and plywood, inflated rubber, and drain pipes to form the gun. A Japanese fake tank constructed out of rubble and volcanic ash was commended for its attention to detail and artistry. Inflated tanks were not only used to trick the enemy, but also served to practice formations.
Many of the dummies were also easy to transport and assemble. An inflatable tank could be unfurled from a duffle bag, pumped with air from a generator, and completed in just 20 minutes.
Watch soldiers set up inflatable decoys in the video below:
Entire decoy airfields were made by Britain’s Royal Air Ministry. Instead of hiding the easily spotted structures, they designed dummy airfields filled with dummy planes that were imitations of satellite stations. The unit also lit oil fires, called “starfishes,” in harmless locations after the first wave of a bombing raid, making subsequent waves believe those areas were targets, explained Forbes. While preserving the real fleet, the tactic wasted the enemy’s bombs and ammunition.
And these efforts proved to be extremely effective. For example, in the summer of 1940, Colonel J.F. Turner of the Royal Air Ministry organized 100 dummy airfields and built about 400 dummy aircrafts to confuse German aerial bombers. In one raid on August 4, 1940, three waves of bombs struck the decoy structures, leaving the real factory almost unscathed. Turner’s sophisticated dummy aircrafts “saved hundreds of lives and vital war production facilities,” wrote Blanks. Similarly, the U.S. military’s Ghost Army saved tens of thousands of soldiers’ lives, estimated The Atlantic.
This ingenious craft has since faded with time. Sophisticated surveillance technologies, such as satellites and drones, have since made ballooned tanks, straw airplanes, and other visual ruses less effective. But the decoy armies of World War II remain a captivating example of the intricate art of military deception and trickery in action.
Explore more dummy installations from World War II below.
*Correction: An earlier version of this story misspelled a location in Italy. It is Forte dei Marmi, not Forte dei Maimi. |
In 2008, SHARK investigators attended the Tucson Rodeo and documented horse after horse being shocked with electricity to make them perform. Watch here as the abusers take great care to try and hide their cruel actions from the crowd:
During the PRCA rodeo, also known as La Fiesta de los Vaqueros, SHARK investigators noted advertising from Trader Joe's. Trader Joe’s is known for leading other food retailers in the treatment of animals; carrying only cage-free egg, etc. So after the rodeo, upset consumers began to contact Trader Joe's to express their dismay.
Trader Joe's then showed why they are beloved by consumers and considered by many experts to be a leader in responsible corporate behavior. The Chairman and CEO, Dan Bane, quickly put an end to any further rodeo sponsorships and sent handwritten notes to people who had contacted the company. Bravo Trader Joe's! |
Ready, Steady, Practise! at
Thatcham Park Primary School
Mrs Sheen’s Year 5 lesson for multiplying and dividing by 10, 100 and 1000 using the Ready, Steady, Practise! Mental Arithmetic pupil books.
After Mrs Sheen models the concept on the place value grid, the children return to their desks and - depending on how confident they feel - pick which activity they’d like to try from the differentiated exercises in Ready, Steady, Practise!“As a school we try to encourage the children to choose their own activity – this stretches them, as if they feel confident they can go for a more difficult exercise.”
Using the books
The children work on their exercises, comparing with their neighbours and getting help from Mrs Sheen or her Teaching Assistant. They then choose a new harder or easier exercise depending on how they’re getting along.“It makes it easier to have ready to use exercises for the lessons. We often use the books in intervention groups too. They’re easy to work from and the children seem to really enjoy using them.”
Mrs Sheen puts the answers at the front of the class so the children can mark their own work. The children huddle around and compare marks, then write down how they feel about the exercise.
“We encourage the children to asses themselves and decide whether they’ve understood the concept or need more help.” |
SKYRC motor analyzer is a precision electronic device that is especially designed for measuring the KV value, RMP, current drawn, motor timing, vibration noise level and checking the function of hall effect sensors of a brushless motor. It comes with a 2X16 characters LCD that is able to display real time measuring value of either sensor or sensor-less brushless motor.
KV(RPM per Volt) Show the rotor RPM/Volt at a certain throttle power level. U(VOLT) Show the input voltage to motor checker. RPM(Revolution Per Minutes) Show the rotor revolution at a certain throttle power level. I(AMP) Show the current drawn by the motor at a certain throttle power level.
MOTOR TIMING: Physical endbell timing, usually between 0 and 70 degrees, requires tools to rotate the sensor board.
NOISE LEVEL: Poor assembly motor, inferior bearing and unbalanced rotor can generate a vibration. Whenever a motor in air vibrates, it causes compression waves in the air. These waves move away from the motor as sound or noise. Vibration noise of motor is adverse the performance of motor. By measure the noise level of motors, you can select the less noise motor. The decibel (dB) is a logarithmic unit used to express noise level in this motor analyzer.
Phase A, B and C Sensor Timing: Show the actual timing of three sensor elements as above picture.
Input Voltage: 7.4-8.4V (Suggested to Use 7.4V 2S 1P LiPo Battery)
LCD Display Screen: Blue Backlight Background, White Text, 16 Characters X 2 Lines
KV Value Accuracy: +/- 3%
Motor Timing Accuracy: +/- 4%
Motor Timing Range: 0-70 Degree
Noise Level Measurement Range: 60dB - 120dB
Supported Motor: Sensor or Sensor-less Brushless Motor (2 Poles to 36 Poles)
Dimension: 136.5 x 80.6 x 24.5mm
Net Weight: 282gram (Without Cabel)
- KV Measurement
- RPM Measurement
- Voltage Measurement
- Ampere Measurement
- Motor Timing Checking 1) Average Timing 2) Phase A, B, C Timing
- Noise Level
- Hall Effect Sensor Test |
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